\ 


^v.      ^^^rrnf^ 


*>.    ..>^ 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2007  witii  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


littp://www.arcliive.org/details/culturerestraintOOblacricli 


Culture  and  Restraint 


CVLTVRE 


AND 


RESTRAINT 

HVGH    BLACK 

Author    of 
FRIENDSHIP 


FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 
NEW  YORK    .    CHICAGO   .    TORONTO 


Copyright,   1901,  by 

FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 

(October) 


GENERAL 


TO 

MY  MOTHER 

WHO  BY   HER  SILENT  SERVICE 

SHOWED  HER  CHILDREN 

THE  BEAUTY  OF 

SACRIFICE 


Thy  sons,  O  Zion,  against  thy  sons,  O  Greece. 

— Zechariah  ix.  13. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 
INTRODUCTION 9 

I 

ZION  AGAINST  GREECE — THE  PROBLEM  STATED   .    1 3 

II 

THE  ESTHETIC  IDEAL — CULTURE 38 

III 

DEFECTS   OF   THE   AESTHETIC   IDEAL 66 

IV 

CULTURE  AS  RELIGION 92 

V 
THE  PERFECT  MAN •     *     *     •      121 

VI 

THE  ASCETIC  IDEAL — RESTRAINT 147 

VII 
ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  ASCETICISM I76 

7 


8  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

VIII 

PAGE 
FAILURE  OF  THE  ASCETIC  IDEAL 206 

IX 

THE  MEDIEVAL  CONCEPTION  OF  SAINTHOOD     .      .      236 

X 

THE    PHYSICAL    TREATMENT    OF    THE    SPIRITUAL 

LIFE 265 

XI 

THE  TEACHING  OF  JESUS  ON  ASCETICISM      .      .      .      294 

XII 

THE  CHRISTIAN  SOLUTION 32 1 


INTRODUCTION 

THE  problem  suggested  by  the  opposing  ideals 
of  culture  and  self-denial  is  no  academic 
one,  but  in  some  form  or  other  is  a  very 
real  and  practical  difficulty,  which  demands 
some  solution  from  every  one.  Should  a  man  obey  his 
nature  or  thwart  it,  seek  self-limitation  or  self-expan- 
sion? In  some  moods  it  appears  to  us  as  if  the  best 
attitude,  as  it  is  certainly  the  easiest  way  to  peace,  is 
to  accept  simply  what  seem  the  surface  facts  of  our 
nature,  and  give  up  the  long  passion  of  the  saints  after 
the  unattainable.  Yet  in  other  moods  we  recognise 
that  life  gains  in  dignity  and  solemn  grandeur,  when 
a  man  realises  even  once  that  for  him  in  the  ultimate 
issue  there  are  in  all  the  world  only  God  and  his  own 
soul.  We  no  sooner  take  up  one  of  the  positions  than 
doubts  pervade  the  mind  as  to  its  sufficiency.  If  we 
say  that  the  secret  of  life  is  just  to  accept  our  nature, 
and  seek  its  harmonious  unfolding,  immediately  the 
question  arises,  whether  self-culture  is  not  only  a 
subtle  form  of  self-indulgence.  If  again  we  make  re- 
nunciation the  infallible  method,  we  cannot  keep  out 
the  question,  whether  it  is  not  moral  cowardice,  that 
we  refuse  to  live  the  larger  life  and  to  wield  the  wider 
power  which  culture  seems  to  offer. 

The  counsels  of  the  great  teachers  also  are  varied 
and  conflicting  on  this  problem.  Some  say  with  as- 
surance that  "  self-love  is  not  so  vile  a  sin  as  self-neg- 

9 


10  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

lecting,"  and  that  no  human  capacity  was  given  to  be 
renounced ;  others  declare  passionately,  "  Thou  must  go 
without,  go  without — that  is  the  everlasting  song 
which  every  hour  all  our  life  through  hoarsely  sings 
to  us."  Even  if  we  do  not  trouble  much  about  the 
general  statement  of  the  problem,  and  are  not  con- 
cerned about  a  plan  of  life  that  shall  commend  itself 
to  reason  and  to  conscience,  we  do  not  escape  the  many 
practical  difficulties  in  many  things  on  the  border-line 
about  which  there  is  often  no  clear  guidance,  such  as 
amusements,  and  our  attitude  towards  certain  kinds  of 
art  and  literature. 

Needless  to  say,  the  two  voices  represent  the  prob- 
lem of  all  religion,  namely,  how  faith  stands  to  the 
world,  with  its  ordinary  life,  and  ties,  and  business, 
and  pleasures.  The  problem  varies  with  the  ages  with 
their  different  tone  and  quality,  and  varies  even  with 
each  separate  soul  with  its  special  temperament  and 
environment,  but  it  is  an  everpresent  problem.  If  we 
are  to  follow  Christ  and  do  His  will,  what  does  that 
mean  as  to  our  relation  to  the  common  pursuits  and 
human  connections?  Must  we  in  any  sense  cut  adrift 
from  them,  and  even  renounce  the  natural  bonds  which 
unite  us  to  the  general  social  organism  of  our  day  ?  Is 
renunciation  the  keynote  of  the  faith,  and  the  ac- 
credited method  of  entering  into  the  fullest  Christian 
life?  The  problem  comes  to  every  earnest  mind  in 
some  form  or  other;  and  nothing  represents  such  a 
difficulty  to  young  people  as  this,  when  they  first  re- 
spond to  the  claims  of  religion  over  their  lives.  What 
are  they  to  give  up  of  the  many  fascinating  pleasures 
of  the  world  ?  What  are  they  to  deny  themselves,  and 
why?    If  renunciation  is  the  very  root  of  the  faith,  is 


INTRODUCTION  ii 

not  the  giving  up  of  everything  the  better  part?  The 
Christian  life  is  often  presented  to  them  in  the  great 
devotional  classics  as  demanding  the  curbing  of  every 
instinct  and  the  sacrifice  of  every  natural  joy.  The 
thought  cannot  but  arise,  if  the  way  of  the  cross  is  the 
way  to  life,  the  more  complete  the  sacrifice,  the  better. 
Should  not  the  ideal  then  be,  whether  we  can  realise 
it  or  not,  rigorous  mortification,  even  complete  with- 
drawal from  the  entanglements  of  the  world? 

On  the  other  hand,  is  not  the  very  existence  of 
powers  and  capacities  a  tacit  argument  for  their  de- 
velopment? Can  self-denial  be  an  adequate  ideal,  in 
face  of  the  overwhelming  natural  instincts  which  de- 
mand satisfaction? 

Both  sides  seem  to  represent  facts  of  human  nature 
and  of  history,  and  claim  to  be  considered  in  any  com- 
plete plan  of  life.  This  book  is  an  attempt  to  do  jus- 
tice to  both,  and  to  find  a  great  reconciling  thought 
which  may  combine  both,  while  at  the  same  time  it 
saves  them  from  the  inevitable  failure  which  awaits 
them  when  each  is  taken  by  itself. 


Culture  and  Restraint 


ZION  AGAINST  GREECE— THE    PROBLEM 
STATED 

TWO  opposing  methods  present  themselves  to 
us  as  the  secret  of  life,  which  may  be  indi- 
cated by  the  words,  self-expression  and  self- 
repression  ;  or  the  method  of  Culture  and  the 
method  of  Restraint.  They  are  usually  set  against  each 
other  in  irreconcilable  opposition,  making  a  clear  line 
of  cleavage  inflexibly  dividing  history  and  life :  on  one 
side  the  method  of  the  world  which  appeals  instinct- 
ively to  man,  the  full-blooded  gospel  of  the  natural  joy 
of  Hfe;  on  the  other  side  the  method  of  religion,  with 
its  pale  and  bloodless  creed,  with  the  essence  of  its  doc- 
trine popularly  summed  up  in  the  rule,  that  the  whole 
duty  of  man  is  to  find  out  what  he  does  not  like  and 
do  that.  The  one  is  the  life  of  nature,  a  broad  and 
beaten  path  which  invites  the  feet,  where  the  self  is 
enriched  by  all  the  manifold  experiences  of  the  way; 
the  other  is  the  selfless  life,  and  its  eternal  symbol  is  a 
cross.  The  watchword  of  the  one  is  perfection  through 
joy;  of  the  other,  perfection  through  suffering.  The 
contrast  can  be  elaborated  and  extended  in  many  ways 
— and  exaggerated,  for  that  is  what  it  usually  means; 

13 


14  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

but  we  cannot  leave  it  in  this  hopeless  antinomy.  Such 
clean-cut  divisions  are  usually  artificial,  and  as  a  mat- 
ter of  fact  we  find  on  both  sides  facts  of  human  nature 
and  of  experience,  which  are  assuredly  facts,  and  can- 
not be  left  to  stand  in  isolation.  There  must  be  some 
point  of  reconciliation,  some  higher  unity,  which  com- 
bines them  both.  There  is  indeed  a  line  of  cleavage 
which  divides  men,  but  it  is  one  of  spirit,  and  not  of 
method.  The  failure  of  each  of  the  methods  by  itself 
shows  that  there  must  be  some  solution,  or  at  least 
that  the  contrast  has  been  wrongly  stated. 

This  latter  is  certainly  part  of  the  explanation;  and 
we  can  easily  see  the  strong  temptation  to  exaggerate 
one  of  the  sides  at  the  expense  of  the  other.  A  nar- 
row and  partial  view  of  truth  always  leads  to  error  in 
the  statement  of  even  the  one  side;  and  much  more  is 
this  the  case  when  we  are  dealing,  not  with  theories 
of  truth,  but  with  life  itself,  where  the  difficulty  is  in- 
creased by  the  disturbing  elements  of  temperament, 
inclination,  passion,  and  all  the  moral  temptations 
which  menace  life.  Thus,  it  is  natural  to  meet  from 
the  side  of  culture  the  temptation  to  make  the  desire 
for  self-expression  the  most  unblushing  selfishness, 
and  to  meet  from  the  side  of  religion  the  temptation  to 
enthrone  a  morbid  form  of  self-repression  as  the  ideal, 
and  to  trample  on  the  legitimate  claims  of  the  other. 
In  either  case  we  suffer  from  a  partial  view  of  the 
facts  of  human  nature,  as  when  we  find  culture  travers- 
ing all  the  lower  reaches  of  man's  powers,  and  refusing 
even  to  consider  the  higher  sphere  of  the  spiritual;  or 
when  we  find  religion  depreciating  things  which  are 
the  very  glory  of  the  race,  in  the  strange  thought  of 
honouring  God  by  denying  some  of  God's  gifts  to  men. 


ZION  AGAINST  GREECE  15 

We  must  be  willing  to  suffer  the  fate  of  all  mediators, 
who  see  the  truth  on  both  sides,  and  who  refuse  to 
become  partisans.  The  two  extremes  appeal  most 
readily  to  men,  and  so  there  is  seen  in  human  history 
the  strange  rhythmical  tendency,  which  makes  an 
epoch  alternate  with  its  opposite,  a  time  of  reforming 
zeal  succeeded  by  a  period  when  the  fire  seems  burned 
out,  license  following  restriction,  and  w^  versa. 

The  instinct  which  seeks  self-expression  is  innate 
in  us,  and  no  theory,  economic  or  religious,  can  de- 
stroy the  individualism  of  man.  "  I  am  I "  is  the  first 
equation  of  all  knowledge;  for  it  is  the  statement  of 
self-consciousness.  It  is  often  asserted  that  progress 
is  towards  similarity  and  social  equality,  and  it  is  true 
in  a  sense  that  progress  will  mean  something  like 
equality  of  opportunity;  but  it  is  far  nearer  the  truth 
to  say  that  progress  is  towards  divergence.  The 
higher  the  life,  the  greater  is  the  complexity  of 
function,  and  this  is  the  case  with  society  as  well  as 
the  single  organism.  Even  equality  of  opportunity  in 
education  only  develops  individuality,  and  creates  dif- 
ference. Many  amiable  attempts  have  been  made  to 
eliminate  the  Ego  from  man  by  external  means,  but  they 
could  only  succeed  by  eliminating  man  himself.  Be- 
ing such  persons  as  we  are,  with  this  craving  for  self- 
expression  and  self-satisfaction,  it  is  to  be  expected 
that  at  all  times  there  should  be  a  philosophy  which 
teaches  the  duty  of  satisfying  the  instinct.  This  phil- 
osophy has  sometimes  been  stated  in  very  unworthy 
forms,  in  morals  an  Epicureanism  which  easily  became 
the  grossest  self-indulgence,  in  economics  a  scramble 
of  competition,  every  man  for  himself  and  the  devil 


1 6  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

take  the  hindmost.  The  besetting  danger  of  all  efforts 
after  self-expression  lies  on  the  surface.  Self-love  is 
a  root-principle  of  human  nature,  but  when  it  is  seen 
degraded  and  running  riot  in  animaHsm,  a  protest  be- 
comes inevitable.  But  the  philosophy,  which  takes  ac- 
count of  the  natural  demand  of  our  being  for  self-satis- 
faction, can  be  set  forth  in  high  and  refined  forms. 

Culture  is  an  attempt  to  do  this  from  a  high  stand- 
point. It  declares  that  the  purpose  of  life  is  that  we 
should  come  into  the  full  realisation  of  our  powers; 
and  this  is  to  be  achieved,  not  by  limitation,  but  by  ex- 
pansion, by  obeying  our  nature  fearlessly.  It  carries 
with  it  the  sacred  duty  to  develop  all  the  faculties,  to 
train  the  mind,  to  attempt  to  reach  a  complete  and  well- 
balanced  state  of  existence,  to  become  all  that  it  is 
possible  for  each  individual  to  become.  It  is  the  duty 
of  a  man,  not  only  to  enrich  his  nature  through  all  the 
experiences  and  from  all  the  sources  possible,  but  to 
use  these  as  opportunities  to  unfold  himself  without 
fear  and  without  doubt.  Emerson,  who  was  an  idealist 
in  every  fibre  of  his  mind,  and  could  have  no  sympathy 
with  any  form  of  moral  laxity,  preaches  this  creed  with 
intense  earnestness.  In  some  of  his  essays,  notably  the 
one  on  Self-Reliance,  he  asserts  the  right  and  duty  of 
the  individual  to  live  his  own  life  to  the  best  advantage. 
"  Trust  thyself,"  he  is  ever  saying ;  "  no  law  can  be 
sacred  to  me  except  that  of  my  own  nature."  He  pro- 
tests against  conforming  to  any  custom,  or  tradition,  or 
prejudice,  that  would  hinder  full  self-realisation.  He 
protests  even  against  the  idea  that  a  man  must  be  con- 
sistent with  himself,  in  so  far  as  anything  in  the  past 
would  be  a  restraint  on  present  self-expression. 
**  Speak  what  you  think  now  in  hard  words,  and  to- 


ZION  AGAINST  GREECE  17 

morrow  speak  what  to-morrow  thinks  in  hard  words 
again,  though  it  contradict  everything  you  said  to- 
day." 

This  demand  for  self-expression  seems  to  justify 
itself  by  its  success,  and  by  its  necessity  for  greatness 
in  any  branch  of  activity.  "  Be  yourself  "  is  the  first 
lesson  of  every  teacher  of  every  art,  and  the  last  lesson 
also.  The  mere  imitative  artist,  without  distinctive 
creative  power,  who  only  repeats  past  forms  and  types, 
is  a  cumberer  of  the  ground.  Art  is  vital,  not  mechan- 
ical, a  putting  forth  of  the  inner  life,  not  an  exercise  of 
technique.  Art  demands  from  her  disciples  that  they 
should  be  original  in  the  true  sense,  that  they  have 
made  their  own  the  truth  they  utter  in  whatever  form, 
so  that  it  come  forth  formed  by  their  mind  and  per- 
sonality, coloured  by  the  red  blood  from  their  own 
heart.  The  teaching  of  culture  in  the  great  art  of 
living  is  similar, — Be  yourself;  express  yourself;  be- 
come what  you  may  be ;  reach  out  to  your  possibilities ; 
live  the  fullest,  richest  life  you  may. 

Over  against  this  there  is  the  other  method,  which 
claims  more  distinctively  to  be  the  religious  method, 
that  of  self-repression.  It  sees  that  selfishness  is  the 
bitter  root  of  life,  and  that  the  efforts  of  man  after 
self-expression  have  often  ended  in  a  revel  where  all 
evil  passions  have  been  awakened,  and  that  men  have  K 
failed  utterly  in  reaching  even  happiness  by  their  eager 
search  for  it.  So  it  makes  sacrifice  the  secret  of  life. 
Not  the  masterful  men,  but  the  meek,  inherit  the  earth. 
It  carries  the  war  into  the  enemy's  territory,  and  asserts 
that  even  for  a  rich  vital  culture  the  gate  to  self-knowl- 
edge is  self-distrust.  The  sanctuary  of  truth  is  only 
entered  by  worshippers.     For  success  in  work  there 


1 8  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

must  be  genuine  self-repression ;  a  man  must  lose  him- 
self in  his  work,  or  his  very  shadow  will  prevent  him 
from  reaching  the  highest.  Self-conscious  work,  es- 
pecially in  art,  is  bad  work.  To  be  his  true  self,  a 
man  must  suppress  himself ;  to  be  a  perfect  instrument 
of  high  thought,  to  be  in  vital  correspondence  even 
with  nature,  there  must  be  suppression  of  impulses 
and  sensibilities,  which  only  dim  the  mirror  through 
which  truth  reflects  itself  to  us. 

All  these  considerations  make  it  natural  that,  when 
the  world's  philosophy  of  satisfying  self  has  failed,  the 
other  extreme  should  be  tried.  It  glorifies  self-denial, 
and  points  resolutely  to  a  strait  gate  and  a  narrow  way, 
and  does  not  hesitate  to  denounce  as  self-indulgence  the 
aim  of  culture,  to  perfect  the  nature  by  the  varied 
channels  v/hich  the  wbrld  affords.  Only  in  sacrifice 
is  life  perfected.  It  speaks  of  restraint,  denying  one- 
self, and  giving  up,  cutting  off  a  right  hand,  and  pluck- 
ing out  a  right  eye.  In  the  passion  of  sacrifice  it 
seems  to  make  the  ideal  an  emasculated  life,  anaemic, 
impoverishing  the  nature,  cutting  off  the  sources  of  joy, 
reducing  the  scope  of  the  powers,  and  narrowing  down 
the  whole  horizon.  It  is  the  way  of  the  cross,  and  to 
the  eye  of  culture  it  looks  like  madness,  ever  meddling 
with  the  free  play  of  human  instincts,  ever  silencing 
the  voice  of  nature,  leaving  a  poor  mutilated  life.  Not 
"  Be  yourself "  is  the  watchword,  but  Give  up,  go 
without,  renounce  the  natural,  put  a  check  upon  the 
normal  and  spontaneous  outflow  of  vital  energies,  tame 
and  subdue  the  high  heart  of  man. 

The  two  theories  are  vaguely  called  by  the  names 
of  Hellenism  and  Hebraism,  as  suggesting  the  two 


ZION  AGAINST  GREECE  19 

great  streams  of  influence,  which  have  made  modern 
Europe  what  it  is.  The  names  are  not  quite  appro- 
priate, though  we  can  see  how  it  came  about  that 
they  should  have  such  a  significance.  The  words, 
which  have  suggested  the  title  of  this  chapter,  are 
taken  from  the  Prophecies  of  Zechariah,  and  seem  to 
imply  that  the  particular  section  of  the  book  in  which 
they  occur  must  in  all  probability  be  dated  near  the 
closing  era  of  Old  Testament  religion.  In  the  early 
prophecies,  Greece  is  hardly  ever  mentioned,  and  only 
as  one  of  the  far-away  heathen  countries  at  the  ends 
of  the  earth  from  Israel;  for  of  course  at  that  time 
Greece  did  not  really  exist  for  the  Jews,  and  never 
came  into  contact  with  them.  The  peoples,  which  then 
loomed  large  in  the  horizon,  were  Egypt,  and  the 
Asiatic  Empires  of  Assyria  and  Babylon,  and  latterly 
Persia.  These  each  in  turn  represented  the  scourge 
of  God  for  poor  Israel,  the  hammer  that  broke  them, 
or  the  anvil  on  which  they  were  broken.  With  none 
of  these  great  world-empires  could  Israel  cope,  and 
all  that  she  could  ever  hope  for  was  to  be  let  alone, 
and  be  left  to  work  out  her  own  higher  destiny.  The 
struggle  for  Israel  was  not  that  of  war,  but  a  struggle 
to  preserve  her  own  peculiar  treasure.  Each  external 
conflict,  through  which  the  Jews  came,  was  only  part 
of  a  deeper  problem,  representing  a  sorer  internal  con- 
flict, to  keep  from  being  lowered  down  religiously  to 
the  level  of  paganism  around  them. 

In  the  decay  of  the  Persian  Empire  the  opportunity 
came  for  Greece,  which  brought  her  into  contact  with 
Israel.  Alexander  the  Great  began  his  wonderful  con- 
quests in  Asia,  beginning  with  Syria,  when  he  took 
Damascus,  Tyre,  and  Gaza ;  then  conquered  Egypt  and 


20  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

founded  Alexandria;  and  then  overthrew  the  great 
Persian  Empire,  and  ultimately  carried  his  arms  to  In- 
dia. Everywhere  he  was  irresistible,  and  swept  huge 
armies  out  of  his  path,  overturning  the  crumbling 
Oriental  empires.  It  boded  no  good  for  Israel,  so  far 
as  national  hopes  went.  To  the  prophet  the  mighty 
Greek  conquest  meant  only  the  old  story  of  danger  and 
menace  to  Jerusalem,  with  which  past  records  were  full. 
We  have  said  that  the  great  danger,  which  ever  threat- 
ened the  true  Israel,  was  the  danger  to  religion.  For- 
eign rites  and  worship  and  faith,  a  lower  type  of  re- 
ligion, and  a  lower  level  of  life,  were  ever  being  forced 
on  the  people  from  without,  and  easily  found  allies  to 
support  them  from  within.  The  danger  to  religion  be- 
came greater  when,  as  was  the  case  with  Persia  and 
Greece,  a  very  attractive  and  dominating  civilisation 
was  added  to  the  military  ascendancy.  Especially  was 
this  so  with  Greece,  which  then  stood  for  culture,  and 
all  that  makes  for  knowledge,  and  beauty  in  art  and 
poetry,  and  grace  in  life.  Alexander's  great  conquests 
were  not  merely  military.  He  established  Greek  col- 
onies and  Greek  kingdoms  all  over  Asia,  and  extended 
the  Greek  language  and  civilisation.  All  this  repre- 
sented a  force  subtler,  and  more  insidious,  and  more 
difficult  to  combat,  than  mere  brute  force  of  arms.  The 
Jewish  people  were  in  spite  of  themselves  drawn  into 
contact  with  the  great  influences,  which  sprang  from 
Greece,  and  which  were  changing  the  world.  Alex- 
ander's dream  was  to  found  a  universal  empire,  which 
would  be  held  together  by  unity  of  language  and  civi- 
lisation. The  great  intellectual  force,  which  Greece 
represented,  was  to  weld  the  diverse  nations  of  Asia 
into  one.     That  is  why  he  took  such  care  to  plant 


ZION  AGAINST  GREECE  it 

Greek  colonies  everywhere.  Wherever  his  armies 
passed,  there  followed  the  establishment  of  Greek  cities, 
to  saturate  the  whole  East  with  Hellenic  culture.  It 
was  a  bold  scheme,  which  showed  Alexander  to  be  a 
great  statesman,  as  well  as  a  great  soldier;  and  the 
scheme  was  to  a  large  extent  successful,  as  is  seen  from 
the  place  which  towns  like  Alexandria  took  in  the 
future  of  the  world.  All  over  Asia  Minor  these  Greek 
influences  were  especially  powerful,  and  even  in  Pales- 
tine itself  Greek  ideas  grew  so  strong,  that  there  arose 
a  fierce  struggle  among  the  pious  and  patriotic  Jews 
against  Hellenic  culture.  The  network  of  Greek  cities 
all  around  Israel  exerted  a  constant  influence  to  break 
down  the  exclusive  religion  of  Israel,  as  well  as  the 
exclusive  manners  and  customs. 

Out  of  this  struggle  arose  the  two  parties  among 
the  Jews,  so  much  heard  of  in  the  ministry  of  Jesus, 
the  Sadducees  and  the  Pharisees.  The  Sadducees, 
largely  composed  of  the  upper  classes,  affected  not 
only  the  Greek  language,  but  also  the  laxer  religious 
views  and  practices  of  Greece.  Hellenism  was  eating 
like  an  acid  into  the  fabric  of  the  old  Jewish  faith,  and 
if  allowed  would  have  destroyed  all  essential  distinc- 
tions between  the  religion  of  Israel  and  the  paganism  of 
Greece ;  but  the  very  attempts,  both  from  without  and 
from  the  Sadducees  within,  to  accelerate  the  gradual 
infection  of  Greek  culture,  brought  about  a  revival  of 
Jewish  feeling;  and  this  revolt  against  the  dominant 
Hellenism  of  the  time  was  largely  carried  out  by  the 
Pharisees.  In  a  true  sense  they  were  the  legitimate 
successors  of  the  reformers  of  the  time  of  Ezra  and 
Nehemiah.  That  work,  which  was  then  begun,  of 
codifying  and  establishing  Jewish  law  and  making  the 


22  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

Jews  religiously  more  exclusive  than  ever,  was  neces- 
sary and  inevitable,  and  really  meant  the  idea  ot  a 
Church  within  the  nation.  The  Pharisees  exaggerated 
it,  and  made  the  rules,  which  had  been  formed  to  pre- 
serve the  faith,  vexatious  and  in  the  long-run  even 
harmful  to  true  religion.  Their  ecclesiastical  regula- 
tions swallowed  up  the  plain  precepts  of  the  moral  law ; 
but  all  the  same  the  Pharisees  were  the  saviours  of  the 
state,  and  were  the  patriots  of  the  troublous  time  of  the 
Maccabsean  wars.  They  were  narrow  and  bigoted,  and 
were  what  we  would  call  the  obscurantist  party  oppos- 
ing the  culture  and  light  of  Greece ;  but  the  Sadducees, 
who  were  broader  minded,  and  who  were  tinged  v/ith 
Greek  art  and  literature,  and  advocated  the  introduc- 
tion of  Greek  customs,  were  lax  and  irreligious,  and  had 
ceased  to  be  true  Jews  without  becoming  even  decent 
Greeks.  To  fall  thus  between  two  stools  is  always  the 
special  danger  of  the  broad-minded  party.  It  would 
have  been  a  calamity  beyond  words,  if  Israel  at  this 
time  had  been  wiped  out  as  a  force  of  religion :  the  time 
had  not  come  when  she  could  afford  to  cease  to  be  ex- 
clusive. She  had  her  contribution  to  make  to  the  world, 
and  had  to  be  kept  select  after  Ezra's  somewhat  ex- 
ternal fashion.  She  had  to  give  to  the  world  religion, 
which  could  take  the  culture  of  Greece,  and  afterwards 
the  power  of  Rome,  and  elevate  and  inspire  them.  The 
Hellenising  influences  were  needed  to  prepare  the  way 
for  the  coming  of  the  great  Reconciler,  who  would 
make  religion  life,  and  make  life  religious  for  both 
Jew  and  Greek ;  and  the  fanaticism  of  the  ultra- Jewish 
party,  with  its  stern  legalism  and  exclusive  creed,  was 
needed  to  guard  the  deposit,  till  the  fulness  of  time  had 
come.     But  the  struggle  was  fierce,  and  at  one  time, 


ZION  AGAINST  GREECE  23 

just  before  the  rising  under  the  Maccabees,  it  seemed 
as  if  the  Hellenising  party  would  carry  everything 
before  them,  and  sweep  the  old  Jewish  faith  of  the 
prophets,  and  martyrs,  and  saints,  out  of  the  land. 
Fiercer  than  any  mere  struggle  of  arms  was  the  strug- 
gle of  ideas,  and  the  words  of  the  prophet  had  a  keener 
significance  for  the  time  to  come  than  their  first  mean- 
ing. "  Thy  sons,  O  Zion,  against  thy  sons,  O  Greece." 
The  part  which  these  two  small  countries  played  in 
the  history  of  the  human  soul  was  conditioned  by  their 
history,  and  even  by  the  geography.  Among  the 
strongest  antipathies  of  the  Jews,  amounting  almost 
to  terror,  was  that  of  the  desert  and  of  the  sea.. 
Though  originally  a  nomadic  race,  whose  natural 
home  was  the  desert,  they  had  learned  to  dread  it,  as 
"  the  great  and  terrible  wilderness."  ^  Their  long  wan- 
dering in  it,  their  privations  and  struggles  before  they 
were  securely  planted  in  Canaan,  burned  in  on  them 
hatred  of  the  pathless,  arid  waste.  Drought  was  the 
constant  menace  of  Palestine,  but  in  the  desert  drought 
was  chronic :  the  desert  could  swallow  up  a  river,  as  it 
swallows  up  Abana  the  river  of  Damascus,  and  still 
have  its  thirst  unappeased.  Israel  dwelt  always  on  the 
confines  of  the  desert,  in  a  land  that  seemed  to  be 
snatched  from  its  greedy  maw,  and  never  could  forget 
it.  On  the  other  side  was  the  sea,  but  with  a  barren, 
forbidding  coast.  There  are  no  creeks  and  inlets,  no 
promontories  or  rivers  or  bays,  that  afford  a  natural 
harbour.  A  ledge  of  cliff  runs  along  almost  unbroken, 
with  no  place  where  a  great  port  could  be  established, 
and  it  is  nearly  always  a  lee  shore,  as  the  prevailing 
winds  are  westerly.     The  sea  to  the  Jews  on  that  side 

*Deut.  i.  19. 


24  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

was  the  end,  the  unknown,  and  was  accepted  as  the 
limit  of  their  possible  dominion  to  the  west, — "  As  for 
your  western  border,  ye  shall  have  the  great  sea  for  a 
border."  1.  The  charm  of  the  sea,  its  joyous  fascina- 
tion, was  unknown  to  the  Jews.  It  was  a  limitation 
due  to  geography. 

How  different  this  is  from  Greece,  which  has  given 
its  name  to  the  rival  power,  which  contests  the  do- 
minion of  the  heart  and  mind  of  man  with  the  Hebrew. 
Greece  is  cut  up  into  promontories,  and  peninsulas,  and 
bays,  and  islands. 

The  sprinkled  isles, 
Lily  on  lily,  that  o'erface  the  sea. 
And  laugh  their  pride  when  the  light  wave  lisps 
"  Greece." ' 

The  Greeks  were  born  sailors,  open  on  every  side  to 
the  intercourse  of  foreign  nations,  susceptible  to  all 
varied  influences,  which  helps  to  explain  their  light- 
ness and  charm  of  character,  their  free,  joyous  views 
of  life,  their  wide  culture,  which  blossomed  into  art 
and  literature.  They  represent  the  highest  develop- 
ment of  man  through  intercourse  with  men;  while 
the  Jew  was  shut  in  by  the  desert  and  the  sea,  to  work 
out  his  destiny  with  God,  to  grapple  with  the  prob- 
lems of  the  moral  Hfe.  So,  from  Greece  came  art  and 
poetry  to  the  world :  from  Israel  came  religion.  When 
the  time  came,  the  sea  would  be  the  great  means  of  com- 
munication, as  the  Greek  language  itself  also  was,  for 
turning  the  world  into  the  kingdom  of  God,  but  mean- 
while the  sea  was  the  great  barrier  to  keep  the  treasure 
from  being  lost.     When  Greece  by  wisdom  was  failing 

Num.  xxxiv.  6.  '  Browning,  Cleon. 


ZION  AGAINST  GREECE  25 

to  find  out  God,  a  few  tribes  forced  out  of  the  desert, 
and  beaten  back  by  the  sea,  were  learning  on  the  hills 
of  Canaan  the  laws  of  God,  which  are  the  laws  of  life. 
Israel  and  Greece  have  stood  for  the  two  great 
forces  that  have  moulded  Western  history,  and  still 
dominate  modern  life.  They  have  usually  been  stated 
as  opposite  prmciples,  waging  endless  warfare  against 
each  other:  Hebraism  representing  the  sterner  view 
of  Hfe  as  duty,  righteousness,  the  demand  of  a  higher 
law ;  Hellenism  representing  as  the  ideal  an  easy,  har- 
monious development  of  all  the  natural  instincts  and 
capacities  of  man.  Before  the  age  of  historical  criti- 
cism, St.  Paul  made  the  distinction,  so  specially  em- 
phasised in  our  day,  between  the  Hebrew  spirit  and  the 
Gentile,  particularly  the  Greek,  spirit  when  he  says  that 
the  Gentiles  followed  not  after  righteousness,  but  that 
Israel  did  follow  after  the  law  of  righteousness.^ 
Whatever  might  be  said  about  the  Jews,  it  could  not  be 
said  that  levity  and  carelessness  were  their  character- 
istics, or  that  they  were  indifferent  to  moral  issues. 
There  was  a  strenuous  earnestness  in  the  race,  so  that 
Hebraism  has  been  aptly  enough  incorporated  into  our 
language  to  stand  for  the  serious  view  of  life  as  a 
discipline,  the  conception  of  true  happiness  lying  along 
the  line  of  duty,  and  self-control,  and  sacrifice.  St. 
Paul,  even  when  recording  their  failure,  bore  them 
witness  that  they  had  a  zeal  for  God.^  History  fully 
bears  out  St.  Paul's  contrast  between  the  Jew  and  the 
Greek.  The  Jews  did  understand  that  God  requireth 
righteousness  as  indispensable  for  life.  The  law 
flashed  out  its  solemn  warnings  before  their  eyes.  The 
necessity  for  righteous  living,  as  an  article  of  faith, 

*  Rom.  ix.  30,  31.  *Ibid.   x.  2. 


26  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

was  more  truly  theirs  than  any  other  people's.  The 
sense  of  sin,  the  need  of  redemption,  the  lawlessness 
of  human  nature  when  it  is  not  under  subjection  to 
the  law  of  God,  the  necessity  for  restraint  of  even 
natural  powers  and  impulses,  are  all  postulates  of  the 
Bible. 

With  the  Gentiles  it  was  not  so.  In  Greece  the 
highest  form  of  pagan  life  was  reached,  and  there  life 
was  designed  on  the  plane  of  nature.  There  was  a 
frank  worldliness,  the  acceptance  of  the  visible  world, 
making  the  best  of  it  in  every  sense,  so  that  the  art  of 
living  was  carried  to  its  furthest  point.  The  cross, 
and  the  message  of  the  cross,  might  be  a  stumbling- 
block  to  the  Jews,  with  their  glowing  hopes  of  a  Mes- 
sianic King ;  but  St.  Paul  knew  well  that  to  the  Greeks 
the  cross  could  only  be  foolishness,^  with  their  keen 
zest  of  life,  their  pride  of  knowledge,  their  love  of  the 
beautiful  in  nature,  their  whole  conception  of  morality 
as  the  harmonious  development  of  the  powers  existing 
in  man.  Greek  life  was  run  on  a  totally  different  level, 
where  a  portent  like  the  cross  was  sadly  out  of  place. 
Not  self-sacrifice,  but  self-realisation  was  the  highest 
word  of  Greek  thought.  Every  natural  impulse  was 
justified,  and  had  the  sanction  of  religion,  and  even  had 
a  special  deity  assigned  to  it.  The  highest  human  aim 
came  to  be  the  cultivation  of  the  natural,  the  beautiful, 
the  graceful  in  the  world  and  human  life,  the  due  bal- 
ance and  harmony  of  all  the  powers  and  capacities  of 
man,  the  fulfilment  of  the  whole  nature,  the  develop- 
ment of  all  sides  of  life.  Pagan  religion  was  nature- 
worship,  the  worship  of  what  is,  not  the  vision  of  the 
glory  and  holiness  of  God  which  drove  the  Jews  to 

*  I  Cor.  i.  23. 


ZION  AGAINST  GREECE  27 

their  knees.  Sin  therefore  was  not  the  transgression 
of  a  holy  law,  but  merely  the  failure  to  make  the  most 
of  life. 

The  contrast  can  be  worked  out  in  detail  in  many 
lines,  but  it  is  evident  how  the  two  ideals  differ,  and 
how  it  is  true  that  Zion  must  be  against  Greece.  The 
one  stood  for  Religion,  and  the  beauty  of  holiness :  the 
other  for  Culture,  and  the  love  of  beauty.  The  one 
was  sensitive  to  the  moral  purity  of  God,  and  therefore 
to  the  moral  sanctions  of  life:  the  other  was  sensitive 
to  aesthetic  beauty,  and  therefore  to  the  natural  glory 
of  life.  Hebraism  adored,  and  glorified  God:  Hel- 
lenism deified  the  world,  and  glorified  man.  So  that, 
unless  the  morality  of  the  Decalogue,  with  its  re- 
straints and  repression  of  the  evil  taint  in  human  na- 
ture, and  unless  religion,  as  the  prophets  of  Israel  con- 
ceived it,  were  to  be  lost  to  the  world,  the  conflict  of  the 
two  opposing  ideals  could  not  be  avoided.  Hebraism 
therefore  stands  to  us  for  moral  discipline;  Hellenism 
for  the  culture  of  the  human,  the  sensitive  love  of  the 
beautiful,  and  the  joy  of  living. 

We  are  tempted  to  make  this  antithesis  more  abso- 
lute than  it  really  is.  In  such  a  hard-drawn  contrast 
there  is  omitted  on  the  one  side  the  higher  morality  of 
the  Greek  philosophers  and  poets,  in  spite  of  its  mani- 
fest imperfections,  and  the  more  spiritual  conception 
of  the  divine  which  they  attained;  and  also  there  is 
omitted  the  practical  reaction  against  the  popular  re- 
ligion and  the  popular  moral  standard,  which  was  made 
by  the  followers  of  Pythagoras,  a  reaction  which  in- 
cluded strict  asceticism  of  life,  as  well  as  mystical 
speculations.    And  on  the  other  side  the  contrast  is 


28  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

stated,  as  if  all  the  art,  and  literature,  and  intellectual 
advance  were  found  only  in  Greece  and  not  in  Israel. 
It  is  true  that  the  Jews  never  did  show  any  proficiency 
in  the  plastic  arts,  a  characteristic  which  they  have 
shared  with  the  Semitic  race  generally ;  but  the  Jewish 
religion  fostered  arts  like  architecture,  music,  poetry; 
and  their  sacred  literature  in  all  its  varied  forms,  nar- 
rative, prophetic,  lyric,  dramatic,  judged  even  as  litera- 
ture, is  unrivalled  for  sublimity  and  for  power  over 
the  mind  and  heart  of  man.  There  is  omitted  also  the 
tremendous  intellectual  advance  to  the  whole  people, 
caused  by  the  monotheistic  creed  of  Israel.  This  is 
seen  most  markedly  not  only  in  the  prophets'  condem- 
nation of  idolatry  as  moral  evil,  but  in  their  derision 
and  scornful  laughter  at  it  as  grotesque  ignorance. 
The  intellectual  superiority  of  their  attitude  is  too  pal- 
pable to  be  missed,  as  for  example  in  Elijah's  mockery 
of  the  frantic  Baal  worshippers,  "  Cry  aloud ;  for  he  is 
a  god :  either  he  is  talking,  or  he  is  pursuing,  or  he  is  on 
a  journey,  or  peradventure  he  sleepeth  and  must  be 
awaked,"  ^  words  which  cut  deeper  with  their  keen  edge 
of  scorn,  than  the  knives  and  lancets,  with  which  they 
cut  themselves.  A  striking  proof  of  the  mental  superi- 
ority of  Monotheism  is  the  attitude  of  Judah  in  the 
exile,  when  the  feeble  nation,  broken  by  the  barbaric 
might  of  Babylon,  having  lost  everything  but  her  faith 
in  the  One  God,  held  her  head  high  in  scornful  pride, 
as  she  dwelt  captive  among  idolaters.  There  is  no 
more  piercing  satire  in  literature,  than  that  of  the 
prophet's  description  of  the  making  of  a  god — the 
planting  of  an  ash  tree ;  the  felling  it  when  grown ; 
the  kindling  of  a  fire  with  part  of  the  wood  to  roast 

*  Kings  xviii.  27. 


ZION  AGAINST  GREECE  29 

meat  on,  and  with  the  rest  of  the  wood  making  a  god 
to  grovel  before ;  the  smith  fashioning  it  with  hammers, 
fainting  with  the  fatigue  of  working  it  on  the  hot  coals, 
the  carpenter  carefully  measuring  his  part  of  the  work 
with  a  rule,  using  compass  and  planes/ 

The  idea  of  One  God  is  on  a  level  of  thought,  high 
as  the  heavens  above  the  idea  at  the  root  of  Polytheism ; 
for  it  gave  unity  to  the  world,  and  to  man,  as  well  as 
to  God.  A  moral  law,  universal  in  its  working,  bind- 
ing for  all,  and  binding  even  for  God,  is  impossible  in  a 
system  with  many  gods  of  varying  temperament  and 
conflicting  principles,  as  everything  would  depend  on 
the  special  character  and  tastes  of  the  particular  deity, 
whose  influence  was  supposed  to  preponderate  in  any 
given  time  and  locality.  The  basis  for  moral  conduct 
is  taken  away,  if  it  is  even  conceivable  that  a  thing 
could  be  right  in  one  place  and  wrong  in  another,  right 
for  one  deity  and  wrong  for  another,  right  even  for  the 
same  deity  at  one  time  and  wrong  at  another,  if  he  can 
be  persuaded  by  gifts  and  prayers  and  sacrifices  to 
make  right  wrong  on  any  occasion  and  for  any  con- 
sideration. We  know  in  the  direction  of  human  affairs 
that  many  masters  end  in  confusion,  and  we  can 
imagine  the  moral  confusion  introduced  by  the  con- 
ception of  Lords  many  and  Gods  many,  who  ruled 
over  a  distracted  earth.  Faith  in  one  God  was  needed 
before  consistency  in  the  moral  life  of  man  was  possible. 
The  world  is  indebted  to  the  Jews  for  the  moral  law, 
not  merely  the  Ten  Commandments,  but  the  idea  of 
law,  the  possibility  of  any  commandments,  based  not 
on  caprice  or  external  authority,  but  on  the  eternal 
essence  of  things. 

*Isa.  xliv.  9-20. 


30  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

The  result  of  this  moral  advance  was  an  infinite  in- 
tellectual advance  also,  which  brought  reason  and 
order  into  the  world.  There  could  be  nothing  but 
mental  confusion,  so  long  as  the  universe  was  supposed 
to  be  governed  haphazard  and  by  piecemeal,  here  the 
domain  of  one  deity,  there  of  another.  Consistent 
thought  about  nature,  or  human  history,  was  impos- 
sible; and  so  we  find  the  great  thinkers  of  Greece 
striving  to  express  the  idea  of  unity.  While  not  re- 
nouncing polytheism,  they  sought  to  introduce  order; 
some  by  conceiving  of  a  God  who  was  above  the  other 
gods  as  a  sort  of  ultimate  appeal ;  others  by  imagining 
a  dread  impersonal  power  like  Fate,  which  even  all  the 
gods  had  to  obey;  others  denying  that  the  gods  inter- 
fered with  the  world  at  all.  Science  in  its  modern 
sense  had  its  birth  in  Monotheism.  The  idea  of  the 
uniformity  of  nature,  which  is  the  first  principle  of 
science,  was  impossible  till  the  human  mind  swept 
aside  the  intellectual  confusion  of  Polytheism,  and 
through  the  conception  of  law  saw  the  world  to  be 
consistent,  with  unbroken  continuity.  Jewish  religion 
is  the  cradle  of  science.  This  intellectual  superiority, 
which  was  not  confined  to  an  isolated  thinker,  as 
might  be  the  case  in  Greece,  but  which  belonged  to  the 
nation,  needs  to  be  taken  into  account  in  all  the  con- 
trasts, which  are  drawn  between  Hellenism  and  He- 
braism. 

For  all  the  reasons  stated  above  it  is  seen  that  these 
contrasts  are  usually  overdrawn  as  history;  and  this 
particular  contrast,  which  we  are  specially  considering 
in  what  may  be  called  their  various  theories  of  life,  has 
also  been  exaggerated,  and  is  only  borne  out  by  special 


ZION  AGAINST  GREECE  31 

definitions  of  the  two  terms  to  suit  the  particular  thesis ; 
but  there  is  enough  truth  in  the  opposition  to  make  it 
worth  stating.  The  contrast  is  exaggerated,  as  if  they 
were  irreconcilable  opposites,  as  if  there  could  be  no 
higher  unity  which  could  combine  the  two.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  they  must  be  combined  for  a  complete 
solution  of  the  difficulty  they  undoubtedly  represent; 
for  they  are  both  facts  of  human  life.  Still  the  con- 
trast is  a  true  one  so  far  as  it  goes,  and  represents  a 
division  among  men,  which  lasts  to  this  day.  There 
are  the  two  types  of  mind,  to  whom  one  or  other  of  the 
alternatives  makes  its  insistent  appeal.  The  two  forces 
seem  to  play  shuttlecock  right  through  history,  divid- 
ing epochs  and  men.  They  are  seen  rather  as  ten- 
dencies, than  as  deliberate  theories,  formulated  com- 
pletely and  logically  carried  out;  but  even  as  theories 
they  are  ever  to  be  found,  and  seem  fated  to  stand 
apart,  though  we  do  see  them  sometimes  fused  together 
in  more  or  less  measure  in  a  great  man  like  Dante  or 
Spenser  or  Milton,  or  even  in  a  great  epoch  like  the 
Elizabethan,  the  fruit  of  the  twin  forces  of  the  Re- 
naissance and  the  Reformation.  But  almost  always 
one  of  the  theories  appeals  more  strongly  to  each  of  the 
two  families  of  minds,  and  men  seem  to  fall  naturally 
into  one  of  the  two  great  parties.  We  find  it  in  litera- 
ture and  art,  as  well  as  in  theology  and  practical  life. 
The  one  speaks  in  the  name  of  religion  and  asserts 
that  the  highest  life  is  reached  through  sacrifice,  and 
therefore  advocates  stern  self-repression  as  the  true 
method.  It  appeals  to  the  heroic  vein,  throws  con- 
tempt on  all  things  of  earth,  and  deliberately  refuses 
them  for  the  sake  of  the  deeper  life  of  the  soul.  It 
glows  with  unearthly  beauty  in  its  divine  passion  of 


32  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

renunciation.  It  bases  its  verdict  on  the  experience 
that  all  forms  of  worldliness,  however  refined  and 
cultured,  end  in  disillusionment  and  despair,  and  can 
never  satisfy  the  deep  heart  of  man.  The  doom  of 
death  is  on  them,  open,  as  they  are  like  other  earthly 
treasures,  to  the  bite  of  the  moth  and  the  waste  of  the 
rust ;  so  that  even  the  perfecting  of  one's  own  existence 
by  the  ordinary  means  of  culture,  though  it  may  be 
free  from  all  gross  evil,  is  a  barren  task,  unworthy  of 
our  exclusive  regard.  Everything  must  be  sacrificed 
to  the  soul.  The  way  to  save  the  life  is  to  lose  it,  to 
give  it  up,  to  throw  it  away  in  the  devotion  of  a  great 
aim.  Men  thrill,  as  they  have  ever  done,  to  the  high 
passion  of  the  counsel.  It  has  made  saints,  and  mar- 
tyrs, missionaries,  and  philanthropists.  It  is  indeed  at 
the  root  of  all  religion,  that  a  man  should  not  count 
his  life  dear,  and  should  sit  loosely  to  all  worldly  pos- 
sessions, and  when  the  call  comes  should  be  willing  to 
give  up  all  that  the  world  counts  most  precious.  The 
story  of  Buddha,  with  its  voluntary  renunciation, 
driven  by  the  sting  of  soul  and  by  divine  pity  for  suf- 
fering men,  has  false  views  of  God  and  of  human  life, 
but  it  has  a  heart  of  truth  in  it,  and  the  instinct  of  the 
race  pronounces  its  majesty. 

On  the  other  side,  calmly  waiting  for  its  opportunity, 
is  the  opposite  method,  which  speaks  not  of  self-re- 
pression, but  of  self-expression.  It  bases  itself  quietly 
on  the  natural  instincts  and  needs  of  man,  and 
makes  as  its  ideal  the  healthful  outgoing  of  all  the 
activities  of  human  nature.  These  suggest  and 
determine  the  life  man  was  meant  to  live,  so 
let  him  live  that  life  fearlessly,  unfolding  him- 
self as  best  he  can.     The  soul  is  larger,  it  declares,  than 


ZION  AGAINST  GREECE  33 

the  ascetic  would  allow,  and  has  room  for  all  the  world 
of  beauty,  and  thought,  and  art,  and  knowledge,  which 
man  has  been  conquering  for  himself  through  the  cen- 
turies. The  ascetic  method,  if  carried  out  logically, 
would  make  life  colourless,  and  would  result  in  the 
loss  of  individuality,  and  therefore  in  the  loss  of  the 
highest  capacity  of  service.  Besides,  it  is  an  impos- 
sible ideal  for  all  men,  for  if  rigidly  pursued  it  would 
bring  society  to  an  end,  and  the  race  itself  to  an  end. 
The  natural  ideal,  says  this  calm  voice — calm  because 
it  knows  what  weight  of  facts  is  on  its  side — is  a  fully 
developed  and  all-round  health  of  the  whole  individual. 
It  has  support  not  only  from  the  nature  of  man,  but 
from  the  teaching  of  religion,  which  points  to  perfection 
as  its  end ;  so  that  culture  can  be  even  made  a  religious 
duty,  and  it  has  certainly  often  been  elevated  into  a  re- 
ligious cult.  The  strength  of  its  religious  appeal  is 
felt  in  the  question.  Are  we  not  called  on  to  make 
the  best  of  God's  gifts  to  us  in  nature,  as  well  as  in 
providence?  It  cannot  be  that  having  eyes  we  should 
refuse  to  see,  and  having  ears  we  should  refuse  to  hear, 
and  having  brains  we  should  refuse  to  think,  and  hav- 
ing capacities  of  work  and  joy  we  should  refuse  to 
exercise  them. 

And  so  the  two  tendencies,  which  we  can  call  He- 
braism and  Hellenism  if  we  will,  oppose  each  other 
and  make  their  clamant  appeal  to  us  all.  The  con- 
troversy is  perennial,  though  its  forms  change.  The 
problems  which  divided  men  into  Cavalier  and  Puritan 
have  lost  their  point  to  us  to-day  but  the  distinction 
made  th-en  finds  copious  illustration  in  every  stage  of 
human  history,  and  the  same  swing  of  the  pendulum 
from  the  Commonwealth  to  the  Restoration  can  be 


34  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

paralleled  again  and  again,  though  not  perhaps  in  such 
dramatic  completeness.  There  must  be  some  solution 
of  the  seeming  antithesis;  for  wherever  one  side  has 
full  sway,  unhindered  by  the  other,  it  only  prepares 
for  a  strong  reaction.  This  is  so  conspicuous  in  his- 
tory, and  is  such  a  regular  phenomenon,  that  it  seems 
as  natural  as  the  systole  and  diastole  of  a  rhythmically 
pulsating  vessel,  like  the  heart. 

Florence,  when  dominated  by  the  preaching  of 
Savonarola,  became  transformed;  high-born  ladies 
threw  aside  their  jewels  and  finery;  men  turned  from 
evil  ways  into  sobriety  and  godliness  of  life;  all  the 
forms  of  devoted  piety  were  observed,  the  churches 
were  crowded  with  all  classes  of  the  people  from 
nobles  to  peasants,  dishonest  tradesmen  under  the 
awakening  of  conscience  restored  ill-gotten  gains;  the 
Carnival,  which  before  had  been  an  occasion  for  un- 
bridled passions,  wild  revelry,  drunkenness,  and  de- 
bauchery, became  almost  like  a  fast  instead  of  a  ca- 
rousal; the  famous  burning  of  the  "Vanities"  took 
place,  when  men  gave  up  to  the  flames  all  books  and 
pictures  calculated  to  have  an  evil  influence,  all  carnival 
masks  and  costumes,  and  things  associated  with  the  old 
orgies ;  the  very  children  were  turned  into  instruments 
of  the  good  work,  going  through  the  streets  in  proces- 
sion, singing  hymns,  and  collecting  money  for  the  poor 
— and  then  the  tide  turned,  and,  when  Savonarola  was 
in  the  crisis  of  his  struggle  with  the  pope,  almost  the 
whole  city  rose  against  him ;  a  mob  attacked  his  con- 
vent of  San  Marco;  and  the  great  Friar  went  to  his 
martyrdom,  with  the  sorer  martyrdom  of  his  heart  at 
the  thought  that  all  his  work  was  overturned. 

In  the  individual  life  also  it  is  common  to  find  a 


ZION  AGAINST  GREECE  35 

similar  revolt  from  the  strictness  of  early  training,  and 
from  a  crabbed,  narrow  faith.  Just  when  life  seems 
completely  confined  by  a  cast-iron  system  of  repression, 
there  comes  a  revulsion  of  man's  intellect  to  freedom, 
which  too  often  degenerates  into  license. 

The  Renaissance  was,  among  other  things,  a  re- 
action against  asceticism;  as  the  Reformation  was 
also  in  a  more  religious  sphere,  the  recoil  of  the  heart 
from  a  system  that  crushed  healthy  instincts.  A 
theory,  which  made  duty  consist  in  uprooting  the  innate 
powers,  must  provoke  reaction ;  and  sooner  or  later  the 
instinct  of  beauty,  which  is  native  to  man,  will  find 
outlet.  The  Renaissance  was  the  swing  of  the  pendulum 
long  held  back,  and  its  very  excesses  were  due  to 
the  previous  excess.  If  men  rushed  from  the  old  dis- 
cipline and  rigid  regime  to  the  other  extreme  of  license, 
it  was  the  expected  result  at  the  breaking  of  the  bonds 
which  formerly  held  them;  just  as  th-e  license  of  the 
Restoration  in  England,  after  the  iron  hand  of  the 
Commonwealth  was  removed,  is  explained  in  the  same 
way.  At  the  Renaissance  the  new  delight  in  nature, 
in  art,  in  all  the  beauty  and  charm  of  the  world,  burst 
the  bands  of  the  old  theory  of  life.  Interest  in  the 
rediscovered  classical  literature,  the  revival  of  learning, 
all  the  varied  culture  of  Humanism,  came  with  the  en- 
largement of  mind,  which  saw  the  world  and  life  to  be 
larger  in  their  many-sided  interests  than  the  mediaeval 
Church  had  allowed.  In  the  ferment  of  the  time,  paint- 
ing, architecture,  literature  opened  up  new  worlds,  and 
with  these  manifestations  there  appeared  also  a  new 
love  of  natural  beauty.  Petrarch's  description  of  the 
Valley  of  Vaucluse  would  have  been  impossible  in 
Italy  before  his  time.     Sometimes  the  revival  degen- 


36  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

erated  into  naturalism  in  its  gross  forms,  when  men 
threw  aside  all  restraints,  and  the  excess  brought  its 
own  revenge  to  the  destruction  of  art  itself;  but  Hu- 
manism, as  it  appeared  in  history,  was  an  inevitable 
reaction  from  asceticism,  and  illustrated  once  more  the 
old  lesson  that  the  nature  of  man  cannot  be  thwarted 
and  distorted  with  impunity. 

These  then  are  the  two  opposing  elements,  plainly 
traced  in  broad  lines  in  history,  both  of  them  facts 
of  human  nature  clamorously  appealing  for  recogni- 
tion, but  it  is  not  easy  to  do  justice  to  both  sides, 
either  in  a  philosophical  theory  which  will  give  each 
its  proper  place,  or  as  a  practical  solution  for  the  re- 
spective difficulties  each  side  creates  in  our  own  daily 
lives.  It  is  easier  to  take  sides,  to  call  Savonarola  a 
fanatic  monk,  who  tried  to  plunge  the  Renaissance 
back  into  the  gloom  of  the  Middle  Ages ;  or  to  exag- 
gerate the  grotesque  side  of  Puritanism,  as  Butler  does 
in  Hudibras,  and  Scott  does  with  the  Scotch  Covenan- 
ters, underlining  the  scrupulosity  of  the  precision,  and 
the  passion  of  the  fanatic:  as  on  the  other  hand  it  is 
easier  to  assume  that  every  cavalier  was  a  roystering 
swaggerer ;  or  to  mock  at  the  pretension  of  all  forms  of 
culture,  as  if  to  sweeten  the  surface  of  life  were  the 
same  as  to  save  it ;  or  to  sneer  at  all  attempted  revivals 
of  Hellenism  in  our  own  time,  with  their  aesthetic  crazes 
and  endless  affectations.  It  is  useful  enough  that  the 
faults  and  failures  of  both  sides  should  be  pointed  out ; 
but  mutual  recriminations,  which  end  there,  do  not  help 
much  towards  a  solution.  The  first  principle  of  any 
attempted  irenicon  between  the  two  forces,  represented 
by  Zion  and  Greece,  is  that  it  must  include  both,  as 


ZION  AGAINST  GREECE  37 

can  be  proved  from  the  undoubted  dangers  which  beset 
each  of  the  two  tendencies  when  left  to  itself. 

Culture  is  tempted  to  be  blind  to  the  tragic  facts 
of  human  nature,  and  to  smother  the  soul  in  external 
forms  and  objects.  This  carries  with  it  also  the  con- 
stant danger  of  moral  relaxation;  for  if  all  that  is  in 
man  only  needs  unrestrained  development,  life  can  be 
made,  as  it  has  often  on  these  lines  been  made,  a  dance 
of  devils.  Even  if  this  moral  catastrophe  be  avoided, 
culture,  separated  from  the  serious  temper  of  religion, 
grows  shallow,  if  not  base,  in  its  tendency.  With  all 
possible  grace  and  charm  a  literature,  which  has  lost 
touch  with  strength  and  seriousness,  dwindles  into 
frivolity  or  grossness. 

The  opposite  danger  on  the  side  of  religion  is  a 
morbid  introspection,  which  dwarfs  life  and  leads  to 
atrophy  of  the  natural  powers.  All  wilful  mutilation 
of  life,  all  refusal  of  the  wide  and  spacious  inheritance 
to  which  we  have  been  bom  as  men,  is  tacit  unbelief. 
It  throws  the  whole  providence  of  God  into  confusion, 
to  make  nature  a  satanic  contrivance,  as  if  it  were 
outside  of  the  divine  government.  The  ideal  thus  must 
include  both  elements,  each  being  needed  to  save  the 
other  from  the  defects  of  its  quality.  If  the  Greek 
spirit  is  needed  to  broaden  the  life  of  a  people,  the  He- 
brew spirit  is  needed  to  deepen  it,  and  indeed  to  give 
it  the  solid  foundation  on  which  alone  beauty  can  be 
permanently  built. 


II 

THE  ESTHETIC  IDEAL  — CULTURE 

IT  may  seem  like  pronouncing  on  the  futility  of  cul- 
ture at  the  very  start  to  associate  it  with  the  very 
word  aesthetic,  as  giving  a  dog  a  bad  name  is  a 
preparation  for  hanging  it.  It  is,  however,  with 
no  controversial  intention  we  use  the  word,  but  partly 
because  the  name  need  not  be  relegated  to  an  unworthy 
use,  and  partly  because  of  the  difficulty  of  finding  a 
better  word.  ^Esthetic,  from  its  derivation,  means 
perception,  or  what  is  perceptible  by  the  senses,  but  it  is 
narrowed  further  to  apply  to  the  science  of  beauty  and  * 
to  matters  of  taste.  In  its  best  sense  it  means  the  love 
of  poetry  and  art  and  all  works  of  imagination,  de- 
manding a  cultivated  mind  to  appreciate  the  shades  of 
beauty  in  these  subjects ;  and,  while  culture  may  claim 
a  wider  sphere,  still  it  chiefly  works  by  means  that  may 
be  called  aesthetic,  seeking  to  ripen,  and  sweeten,  and 
enlarge  our  appreciation  of  the  best  things  in  the 
world  and  human  life.  In  its  worst  sense  the  word 
has  an  unfortunate  suggestion  of  affectation  and  pose, 
implying  a  superfine  and  exaggerated  devotion  to  petty 
details  on  the  surface  of  art,  and  a  supercilious  con- 
tempt for  the  practical  affairs  of  the  world. 

The  word  culture  itself  does  not  escape  this  diffi- 
culty of  having  various  meanings.  It  too  has  been 
debased  to  mean  the  same  sort  of  affectation  and  ped- 
antry, as  if  it  stood  for  the  multifarious  scraps  of  in- 

38 


THE  ^ESTHETIC  IDEAL  —  CULTURE    39 

formation  about  literature  and  art,  which  are  accepted 
as  passwords  by  the  select  cliques.  Addington  Sy- 
monds  ^  complained  that  a  reviewer  of  one  of  his  books 
sneered  at  him  for  travelling  around  Europe  with  a 
portmanteau  full  of  culture  on  his  back,  and  this  set 
him  to  reflect  that  his  reviewer  must  have  had  a  differ- 
ent conception  of  culture  from  himself,  and  must  have 
imagined  it  to  consist  of  certain  select  views  about  art 
and  pieces  of  literary  information,  which  could  be 
hawked  about  the  country  as  a  pedlar  takes  his  pack. 
This  is  a  common  enough  view,  for  which  some  apostles 
of  culture,  who  rave  periodically  about  some  obscure 
picture  or  some  newly  discovered  book,  are  responsible, 
a  view  which  has  become  so  ingrained  in  the  public  mind 
that  it  is  difficult  to  speak  seriously  of  culture  and  the 
aims  of  culture  at  all.  But  in  spite  of  the  deterioration 
of  the  word  in  popular  usage,  the  thing  it  stands  for  is 
too  important  and  vital  to  be  dismissed  with  a  sneer. 

In  addition  also  to  this  varied  use  of  the  word  there 
is  still  another  element  of  confusion  in  the  fact  that, 
besides  its  natural  uses  in  the  unmetaphorical  sense, 
culture  can  mean  either  a  process,  as  in  the  phrase  the 
culture  of  the  mind,  that  is,  its  training,  or  it  can  mean 
a  product,  the  result  of  the  process,  as  when  we  speak 
about  a  man  of  culture.  In  the  first  case  it  suggests 
the  machinery  of  education,  the  appropriation  of  learn- 
ing, a  system  by  means  of  which  the  understanding  and 
the  taste  are  cultivated ;  and,  as  it  is  a  common  failing 
to  exalt  the  means  unduly,  this  is  how  the  suggestion 
that  it  is  something  artificial  has  crept  in.  Professor 
Seeley*  is  so  concerned  about  this  that  he  thinks  it  a 

*/n  the  Key  of  Blue,  p.  195. 
*  Natural  Religion,  Part  ii.  chap.  ii. 


40  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

misfortune  that  those  who  say  *  culture '  do  not  say 
instead  *  rehgion/  since  culture  does  certainly  convey 
the  idea  of  being  merely  a  direction  given  to  the  de- 
velopment of  life,  while  religion  is  the  principle  of  Ufe 
itself,  and  he  is  jealous  for  the  honour  and  high  place 
of  culture.  We  shall  see^  that  this  would  be  to  de- 
nude religion  of  its  hitherto  recognised  significance, 
and  would  be  piling  upon  culture  a  weight  of  meaning 
its  foundation  could  not  bear,  and  would  leave  it,  like 
a  pyramid,  standing  on  its  apex.  It  must  be  content 
with  its  honourable  position  as  a  force  that  gives  a 
very  effective  direction  to  life,  and  is  a  very  valuable 
instrument  of  religion.  In  this  chapter,  in  which  we 
speak  of  its  great  value  and  the  truth  that  is  in  it  as 
an  ideal,  we  will  see  how  it  moves  to  some  extent  con- 
currently with  religion,  reserving  to  a  future  chapter 
any  consideration  of  its  weakness,  and  the  causes  of  its 
failure  when  taken  by  itself. 

Culture  begins  with  accepting  the  Christian  ideal,, 
which  aims  at  perfection  of  life,  and  thus,  with  all 
its  incompleteness,  it  is  in  some  form  necessary  to  every 
man  who  has  ideals  at  all.  It  emphasises  the  duty, 
which  a  man  owes  to  himself  to  be  what  it  is  in  him  to 
become,  the  duty  to  use  all  means  to  attain  a  full  de- 
velopment of  all  his  powers.  It  includes,  therefore, 
the  careful  cultivation  of  every  capacity,  the  ripening 
of  the  nature  by  the  slow  processes  of  growth,  the 
effort  after  self-realisation,  which  produces  artists  in 
every  sphere  of  creative  energy.  It  is  the  conscious 
training,  in  which  a  man  makes  use  of  every  educa- 
tional means  within  his  reach,  feeding  his  inner  life  by 
every  vital  force  in  history  and  experience,  and  so  ad- 

*  Vide  below,  chap.  iv.  "  Culture  as  Religion." 


THE  ^ESTHETIC  IDEAL  —  CULTURE    41 

justing  himself  to  his  environment  that  he  shall  absorb 
the  best  products  of  the  life  of  his  time,  thus  making 
his  personality  rich  and  deep.  Starting  from  this  high 
ground  it  is  not  enough  to  wave  it  aside  with  a  ref- 
erence to  the  lowest  types  of  the  cult,  the  terrible 
prigs  it  has  fostered,  the  superior  persons  who  speak 
mellifluously  of  sweetness  and  light,  and  who  look 
with  contempt  on  the  Philistines;  or  to  the  aesthetic 
coteries,  who  worship  the  bizarre  and  the  uncommon, 
who  rave  about  the  ethical  value  of  blue  china  and 
white  plates  of  Nantgarw,  and  hold  strong  opinions 
about  Botticelli,  or  somebody  else,  according  to  the 
prevailing  fashion;  the  elect  people  who  have  the 
only  true  views  about  wallpaper  and  Oriental  rugs. 
It  would  be  easy  to  refer  to  the  crowd,  which  sham 
culture  has  let  loose  *'  to  rave,  recite,  and  madden 
round  the  land."  That  would  be  the  poor  device  of 
the  controversalist,  who  takes  the  weak  exaggera- 
tions of  those  he  marks  out  as  opponents  and  trans- 
fixes them  with  his  easy  scorn. 

In  cheap  sneers  at  culture  we  forget  that  every 
great  man  has  set  it  before  himself  in  some  form  or 
other,  and  that  it  is  no  broad  and  flowery  path  on 
which  a  man  can  gaily  walk,  but  a  narrow  one 
through  a  strait  gate.  We  forget  that  it  was  not  a 
light  task,  for  example,  which  Goethe  presented  to 
himself,  when  he  made  it  his  aim  in  life  to  develop 
his  every  capacity,  till  he  died,  after  a  long  life  of 
strenuous  mental  activity,  with  the  words  on  his  Hps, 
"  More  light."  What  has  made  Goethe  the  representa- 
tive man  of  culture  was  that  he  resolutely  set  aside 
all  extraneous  interests,  and  calmly  gave  himself  to 
his  engrossing  idea;  that  he  was,  as  Mr.  Hamilton 


42  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

Mabk  puts  it  in  one  of  his  cultured  and  suggestive 
essays,  "  a  man  who  discovered  in  youth  that  life 
ought  not  to  be  a  succession  of  happenings,  a  matter 
of  outward  fortunes,  but  a  cumulative  inward  growth 
and  a  cumulative  power  of  productivity."  ^  We  forget 
also  the  moral  qualities  involved  in  the  tremendous 
course  of  study,  which  a  man  like  Gibbon  set  before 
himself  as  preparation  for  the  writing  of  the  Decline 
and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire.  It  is  a  long  and 
arduous  task  to  master  even  a  branch  of  literature; 
for  it  requires  not  only  almost  sleepless  toil  to  over- 
take the  immense  field,  but  also  asks  for  imaginative 
reconstruction  of  the  historical  conditions,  and^ 
sympathetic  insight  into  the  character  and  tempera- 
ment and  situation  of  the  various  authors,  before 
their  place  in  the  republic  of  letters  can  be  deter- 
mined. And  most  of  all  we  forget  that,  whatever 
follies  may  be  committed  in  its  name,  culture  as  an 
ideal  means  a  vision  of  unrealised  perfection,  and  a 
steadfast  pursuit  of  it,  demanding  intelligent  grasp 
of  the  laws  of  growth,  and  resolute  self-mastery,  and 
unflinching  effort. 

It  comes  even  with  a  religious  force  to  a  man,  who^ 
feels  the  sacredness  of  life,  and  realises  his  obligation 
to  make  the  most  of  life  in  the  best  sense.  Most  of 
the  failures  of  life  are  due  to  want  of  a  real  aim;  we 
pursue  our  course  so  much  by  drifting  rather  than  by 
sailing.  Men  are  so  concerned  about  living,  that 
they  lose  sight  of  life.  The  act  of  living,  the  means 
of  living,  the  details  of  living,  absorb  us  almost  ex- 
clusively, and  we  rarely  try  to  co-ordinate  all  our 
scattered  activities  into  a  large  consistent  plan.  Of 
^Essays  on  Nature,  p.  15. 


THE  ^ESTHETIC  IDEAL —CULTURE    43 

course  we  have  petty  practical  plans,  such  as  to  make 
a  position  in  our  profession,  to  make  money  in  our 
business,  or  to  get  pleasure  in  our  life,  but  as  likely 
as  not  we  have  just  drifted  into  these  plans  also. 
With  all  our  activity  in  living,  the  great  judgment  of 
life  goes  against  us  by  default.  As  far  as  the  indi- 
vidual is  concerned,  the  net  gain  of  life  must  be  a 
gain  in  character;  we  are  judged^  even  by  men  in 
the  long-run,  not  by  what  we  get,  but  by  what  we 
become:  the  fruits  of  life  are  seen,  not  in  what  we 
have,  but  in  what  we  grow  to.  If  this  be  so,  we  need 
a  large  plan  with  some  more  pretensions  to  philo- 
sophical completeness  than  the  small  partial  aims  we 
set  before  us.  It  must  take  into  account  the  whole 
life,  every  part  of  our  being,  every  power  and  faculty, 
Man  has  a  duty  to  himself,  to  attain  and  preserve  the 
integrity  of  his  whole  being.  Jfe  fcas  ccrtaitr  gift 
capacities,  tastes ;  and  the  very  p^???J^oi  tlie§^,4B!lii 
plies  oblicfation  to  mak'c  the  best  of  them,  so  far  as 
li-est     liiis  is  the  demand  of  both  culture  and 


religion,  however  their  various  methods  may  seem  to 
differ*    If  culture  is,  as  it  has  so  often  l)een  defined, 


the  study  of  perfection,  then  it  gives  itself  over  to  the 
religious  ideaU  The  narrowness  of  some  forms  of 
religion,  with  their  one-sided  development,  is  responsi- 
ble for  protests  in  the  name  of  culture,  which  should 
have  the  result  of  bringing  back  religion  into  line  with 
its  whole  duty. 

There   is    a    legitimate   self-love,   not   mereb 
preservaSon  ot  551f,  Wlildl  we  Ul'^  ^^^^,,}^  ^  ^^^  Q^  Q^^ 
nature,   DuTlni^  cotTgideratjg|^  fo^^^^jp^  ^Y^"^ 

good._  TTTeTfflSI^Te^^nises  the  rights  of  selfhood, 
aSTeven  makes  these  rights  the  standard  of  duty  to 


44  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

others, — "  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour  as  thyself." 
This  necessary  self-love  is  taken  for  granted,  as  with 
a  shafp'"stroke  of  logic  the  human  instinct  is  tumeT 
into  a  divine  duty.  Personality  is  the  fact  of  life. 
Christ's  teaching,  even  His  teaching  on  sacrifice,  is 
based  on  the  sacredness  of  the  individual  life.  The 
inalienable  rights  of  personality  got  a  new  and 
commanding  sanction  from  the  whole  trend  of  His 
teaching.  In  a  sense  He  enunciated  the  doctrine  of 
individuality  with  a  force  so  new,  that  He  may  be 
said  to  have  discovered  to  man  the  single  soul.  He 
placed  the  worth  of  a  life  against  that  of  the  whole 
world.  Each  soul  was  called  out  in  splendid  isolation 
to  enter  into  relationship  with  God  separately;  each 
was  endowed  with  sacred  rights,  and  had  a  priceless 
value  put  on  it.  He  liberated  the  energies,  and  en- 
riched the  capacities,  bringing  a  reinforcement  of  the 
natural  powers.  The  promise  of  the  faith  was  ever 
life,  and  life  more  abundantly.  It  was  a  new  doctrine 
of  personality,  which  gave  a  slave  the  dignity  of  a 
free  spiritual  being,  though  in  the  eyes  of  the  law  he 
was  a  chattel.  "  Stand  fast  in  the  liberty  wherewith 
Christ  hath  made  us  free  "  ^  was  the  watchword  of  the 
days  to  come,  sounding  in  the  ears  of  the  early  believers 
as  a  battle-cry,  summoning  them  to  assert  their  rights 
as  living  souls. 

Of  course,  duty  to  self  must  be  distinguished  from 
selfishness,  which  is  the  abuse  of  this  inherent  self- 
regard.  True  self-love  is  not  desire  for  the  pleasure 
of  self,  but  for  the  highest  good  of  self.  It  is  here, 
it  may  be  said  in  passing,  that  there  is  room  for 
sacrifice,  which  is  left  out  in  all  selfish  schemes  of 

*Gal.  V.  I. 


THE  ESTHETIC  IDEAL  —  CULTURE    45 

culture;  for  a  man's  highest  good  may  be  to  give  up 
something  which  his  lower  self  desires  and  craves. 
To  leave  out  of  account  the  moral  discipline  of  life, 
the  supremacy  of  the  conscience,  the  imperious  claims 
of  service,  the  calls  to  self-sacrifice  that  come  to  every 
man,  is  to  mutilate  life,  a^  surely  as  the  ascetic 
does  in  his  rage  for  renunciation  for  its  own  sake.. 
Still,  even  if  it  be  found  that  complete  renunciation 
is  the  ultimate  demand  of  conscience  as  asceticism 
claims,  if  the  test  of  life  be  not  getting,  but  giving  up, 
it  will  still  remain  true  that  the  more  a  man's  per- 
sonality is  strengthened  and  enriched,  the  more 
precious  is  his  contribution.  True  humility  indeed 
implies  self-respect:  to  give  yourself  up  worthily  you 
must  feel  yourself  worthy  to  give*  The  rights  of  self- 
hood interpreted  truly  means  duties,  and  chiefly  the 
duty  of  self-realisation,  which  sums  up  all  the  others* 
The  ground  of  the  duty  is  the  recognition  of  how  much 
can  be  done  by  sustained  education,  how  much  the 
varied  forces  and  rich  influences  of  the  world  can 
effect  when  allowed  to  play  freely  on  a  receptive 
nature  J  the  recognition  that,  as  Edmund  Burke  de- 
clared, Tt»  the  prerogative  of  man  to  be  in  a  great 
degree  a  creature  of  his  own  making,** 

According  to  the  contents  and  spirit  of  our  scheme 
of  culture,  so  will  be  the  strength  of  the  moral  claim 
it  makes  on  us,  and  the  depth  of  its  moral  basis  as  an 
adequate  plan  of  life.  Without  moral  sanctions,  it 
could  have  no  permanent  elements  for  a  human  ideal. 
Self-preservation  as  a  mere  instinct  would  work  au- 
tomatically, and  we  could  not  speak  of  it  as  a  moral 
duty.  Duty  comes  in  when  we  enlarge  and  deepen  the 
idea  of  self.    If  by  it  we  mean  more  than  just  keeping 


46  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

existence  going,  if  we  mean  the  preserving  of  all  that 
makes  us  men,  the  maintaining  of  all  that  it  is  in  our 
nature  to  be,  then  moral  obligation  enters  into  it,  and 
gives  it  a  new  and  added  value.  Culture  aims  at  a 
complete  full-orbed  existence,  not  cramped  and  one- 
sided through  exclusive  regard  of  a  section  of  life.  If 
then  no  other  and  higher  moral  obligation  conflicts 
with  it,  we  must  admit  the  duty  to  seek  the  fulfilment 
of  all  the  human  possibilities  which  lie  in  us,  the  duty 
to  attain  and  preserve  utter  health  of  nature  and  the 
complete  integrity  of  our  whole  being^  and  to  let 
growth  reach  its  maturity  in  us.^  This  is  the  demand 
of  culture,  and  in  this  it  surely  joins  hands  with 
religion,  which  asserts  that  man  should  be  integer 
vitcB  seel  eris  que  pur  us.  We  must  accept  the  truth  of 
the  words,  which  Browning  makes  part  of  Bishop 
Blougram's  Apology,  whatever  we  may  say  to  the  rest 
of  that  Laodicean's  philosophy, 

"  My  business  is  not  to  make  myself, 
But  make  the  absolute  best  of  what  God  made." 

The  first  step  in  such  a  comprehensive  scheme  is 
self-knowledge,  and  this  too  is  the  religious  method. 
Culture  is  possible,  and  is  a  duty,  because  we  are 
able  to  look  in  on  ourselves,  able  to  compare  the 
present  with  the  past,  to  find  out  what  our  tastes,  and 
temperament,  and  capacities,  and  weaknesses  are.  In 
consequence  of  this,  we  are  able  also  to  forecast  to 
some  extent  what  we  can  ba.  and  can  thus  formu- 
late an  ideal  towards  which  we  can  grow..  Without 
a  resolute  attempt  at  self-knowledge,  all  efforts  at 
culture  will  be  largely  misdirected.  This  self-knowl- 
edge means,  not  only  the  recognition  of  the  general 


THE  ^ESTHETIC  IDEAL  —  CULTURE    47 

possibilities  of  human  nature,  but  th-e  more  exact 
appreciation  of  personal  qualities,  and  so  will  show 
how  the  best  may  be  made  of  these^.  A  false  esti- 
mate of  self  may  lead  a  man  to  attempt  what  is  beyond 
his  powers,  vainly  straining  after  distinction  of  work, 
when  in  a  humbler  sphere  he  might  have  achieved 
much.  In  every  sphere  of  art  and  knowledge,  as  well 
as  in  practical  business,  how  often  we  jfind  men  wasting 
their  energies,  and  spending  powers  that  in  the  right 
lines  would  produce  great  results  for  themselves  and 
the  world.  Or  what  is  worse,  may  fritter  away  their 
years  without  a  thought  beyond  the  mere  externals  of 
life,  never  conscious  of  the  possibilities  of  their  own 
nature,  hardly  aware  that  a  whole  world  of  beauty  and 
joy  and  wisdom  and  truth  lies  open  for  them,  if  they 
will  but  enter  it.  Many  doors  remain  shut  that  would 
unfold  almost  to  the  touch,  if  we  but  realised  that  we 
too  had  the  right  to  go  in,  if  we  took  a  larger  and 
braver  conception  of  our  birthright  as  men. 

Jake  the  simplest  of  the  senseS|  for  example^^ 
sight.  As  a  rule  we  just  take  it  for  granted,  and 
leave  it  to  artists  as  men  of  special  capacity,  or  to 
men  of  science  whose  business  it  is,  to  use  their  eyes 
with  trained  judgment,  and  to  educate  their  gift  of 
sight.  Observation,  whether  artistic  or  scientifics 
needs  an  intellectual  effort,  and  the  mass  of  men  go 
through  the  world  with  their  eyes  shut,  because  they 
do  not  realise  that  they  in  their  measure  can  cultivate 
the  gift.  We  will  not  look  long  enough  to  notice 
form  and  colour,  and  as  a  result  of  neglect  both 
nature  and  art  are  to  a  large  extent  sealed  books  to 
us.  Indeed  it  may  be  said  that  of  all  the  recognised 
instruments  of  culture  the  one  which  is  most  often 


4S  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

overlooked  is  the  faculty  of  observation.  There  are 
many  more  men  who  read  than  think,  and  there  are 
more  still  who  think  than  observe ;  for  it  is  much  easier 
both  to  read,  and  to  think  after  a  fashion,  than  to 
observe.  Observation  in  this  sense  is  something 
different  from  the  sense  of  sight.  It  implies  atten- 
tion, keenness  of  perception,  and  power  of  associa- 
tion to  identify  and  classify.  In  the  course  of  a 
country  walk  one  man  will  see  nothing,  and  remember 
nothing,  but  the  obtrusive  objects  of  the  landscape, 
hedges,  and  fields,  and  farmhouses;  another  will  have 
noted  endless  varieties  of  flower,  and  weed,  and  bird, 
and  insect;  or  found  full  delight  in  some  patch  of 
colour,  the  graceful  swaying  of  a  branch,  the  tracery 
of  a  cloud;  or  will  have  had  thoughts  suggested,  and 
remembered,  that  made  his  walk  a  mental  refresh- 
ment. Just  as  in  the  region  of  sound,  during  the  same 
walk,  one  man  with  uncultured  ear  hears  nothing  or 
only  an  indistinguishable  blur,  while  another  hears  all 
sorts  of  tones  and  half-tones  and  harmonies  and  melo- 
dies, and  even  when  sound  itself  seems  dead,  as  on 
rare  occasions  happens,  he  hears  what  Keats  calls 

"  A  little  noiseless  noise  among  the  leaves, 
Born  of  the  very  sigh  that  silence  heaves."  ^ 

Observation  is  a  trained  faculty,  a  disciplined  mind 
using  the  gate  of  the  eye,  and  it  is  astonishingly 
rare  in  any  maturity  of  power. 

Even  in  the  natural  sciences,  which  are  based  on 
observation,  men  usually  find  it  easier  to  theorise,  and 
speculate,  and  make  hypotheses,  than  to  observe 
patiently  and  accurately.     So  rare  is  it  that,  when 

*  Early  Poems. — "  I  stood  tip-toe  upon  a  little  hill." 


THE  ^ESTHETIC  IDEAL  —  CULTURE    49 

a  man  observes  the  simple  facts  around  him  and 
records  lovingly  and  faithfully  the  actual  things  he 
sees  day  by  day,  he  creates  a  masterpiece,  as  Gilbert 
White  did  in  The  Natural  History  of  Selborne.  In  his 
preface  he  declares  that  he  will  be  quite  satisfied,  if 
by  his  book  he  induces  any  readers  to  pay  a  more  ready 
attention  to  the  wonders  of  creation  too  frequently 
overlooked  as  common  occurrences,  or  if  he  should 
have  lent  a  helping  hand  towards  the  enlargement  of 
the  boundaries  of  historical  and  topographical  knowl- 
edge, or  if  he  had  thrown  some  light  on  ancient 
customs  and  manners ;  but  he  did  more  than  all  that,  as 
he  has  often  given  eyes  to  the  blind,  and  ears  to  the 
deaf,  the  next  time  they  took  a  country  walk  after 
knowing  White  of  Selborne. 

The  kind  of  culture  which  is  required  for  scientific 
work,  is  diiferent  from  the  usual  meaning  put  into 
the  phrase  *'  culture  of  the  eye."  By  it  we  mean  a 
trained  capacity  to  see  beauty,  and  to  intelligently 
appreciate  it.  It  is  an  aesthetic  thing  rather  than 
a  scientific,  but  it  is  the  same  faculty  nevertheless, 
trained  in  a  different  line.  It  also  needs  attention, 
keen  perception,  and  power  of  association.  For 
instance,  before  a  painter  can  paint  colour  he  must 
be  able  to  see  colour,  able  to  recognise  it  where  duller 
eyes  miss  it,  see  that  a  bare  grey  rock  is  not  grey  at 
all,  but  with  shades  of  purple,  it  may  be,  and  tones  of 
blue  and  red.  Of  course  this  trained  eye,  even  when 
joined  to  a  trained  hand,  will  not  make  an  artist. 
For  that,  there  is  needed  also  the  creative  imagina- 
tion, the  soul  to  combine  forms  of  beauty  and  body 
forth  an  image,  for  the  production  of  which  the  eye 
and  the  hand  are  only  the  instruments.     Still  this 


50  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

culture  of  the  eye  at  least  makes  it  possible  for  us 
to  enjoy  beauty  whether  of  nature  or  art,  and  will 
unlock  the  sealed  books. 

This  example  we  have  taken  of  the  faculty  of 
sight  is  only  an  illustration  of  the  training  which 
culture  would  apply  all  along  the  line  of  man's 
powers,  bringing  them  into  self-consciousness,  and 
so  creating  duty  regarding  them.  Anything  which 
will  make  men  take  an  intelligent  view  of  their 
powers,  and  which  will  give  them  a  larger  and  deeper 
conception  of  the  opportunities  of  life,  is  to  be  wel- 
comed as  an  ally  of  religion,  the  greatest  obstacle  to 
which  is  just  that  men  will  not  think,  will  not  consider, 
and  only  live  lightly  on  the  surface  of  things,  never 
awed  with  mystery,  or  inspired  with  worshipful  won- 
der. Nothing  truly  human  lies  outside  the  Christian 
sphere.  If  it  puts  the  first  emphasis  on  duty,  on 
morality,  on  righteous  living,  that  is  because  it  must 
put  first  things  first,  as  the  necessary  foundation  for  all 
else.  Only  on  a  firm  moral  basis  can  a  harmoniously 
compacted  life,  such  as  culture  aims  at,  be  built ;  only 
on  such  a  stable  basis  can  there  be  the  equipoise  of 
human  powers,  which  the  aesthetic  ideal  seeks  to  reach. 
That  ideal  is  therefore  not  essentially  opposed  to  re- 
ligion ;  rather  it  is  bound  to  fail,  if  it  is  divorced  from 
religion. 

It  is  because  the  word  culture  has  been  degraded 
to  mean  a  dilettante  interest  in  art,  and  a  taste  for 
the  "  precious "  style  in  literature,  that  we  find  it 
difficult  to  give  it  this  high  place.  But  the  word 
itself  does  not  refer  to  the  graces  and  accomplish- 
ments of  good  taste,  nor  even  the  acquisition  of  knowl- 
edge.    It  meaais  the  constant  and   careful  tillage, 


THE  .ESTHETIC  IDEAL  — CULTURE    51 

needed  to  give  the  fit  environment  for  something  to 
grow,  and  that  something  is  man  himself,  with  his 
complete  powers  and  faculties*  In  its  full  breadth  of 
meaning,  it  seeks  to  raise  all  human  capabilities  to  the 
highest  potency  by  conscious  education^  to  enable  a 
man  to  come  to  his  true  self.  It  aims  at  training  all 
sides  of  a  man's  nature  to  make  him  as  perfect,  as 
finished  a  human  being  as  possible.  If  so^  then  religion 
claims  it  as  an  instrument  for  its  great  work. 

It  is  true  that  the  word~m~coffim5n  speechlFusually 
confined   to   the    intellectual    sphere,    and   perhaps    it   1 
should  be  limited  to  this,  to  avoid  the  confusion  of  / 
thought  due  to  the  double  meaning;  but  even  in  this/ 
limited  sense  of  seeking  to  train  the  mind  by  known 
edge  and  to  increase  susceptibility  to  beauty,  its  value\ 
is  great ;  and  to  this  value  we  will  now  try  briefly  to  \ 
do  justice. 

First  of  all,  the  aesthetic  ideal,  in  even  its  narrow 
sense,  has  been  useful  as  a  necessary  protest  against 
any  form  of  asceticism,  which'  willfully  limits  or  muti- 
lates human  life.  By  bringing  into  prominence  a  side 
of  ethics  often  overlooked,  and  by  refusing  to  allow 
the  legitimate  claims  of  man's  nature  to  be  ruthlessly 
set  aside,  it  has  proved  a  valuable  corrective  of  error 
in  morals,  even  when  it  disclaims  to  have  anything 
to  do  with  morality.  Sacrifice  or  self-denial  must 
always  have  a  place  in  a  true  life,  but  it  is  never  to  be 
sought  for  its  own  sake,  as  if  there  were  any  merit 
in  the  mere  form  of  denial.  This  has  ever  been  a 
besetting  temptation  of  religion,  to  put  a  magical  value 
on  ascetic  practices,  and  to  conclude  that  the  simple 
secret  of  attaining  spiritual  heights  was  to  renounce 


52  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

the  natural,  and  to  trample  on  one  side  of  human 
nature.  This  rival  ideal  will  be  more  fully  treated 
hereafter,  but  culture  does  useful  work  in  pointing 
with  unwavering  insistence  to  spheres  of  activity  that 
demand  scope,  and  to  instincts  whose  very  existence 
is  a  prophecy  of  fulfilment.  Nature  has  stamped  her 
work  with  the  indelible  mark  of  beauty,  and  it  is  dis- 
ease, not  health,  when  a  man  refuses  to  respond  to  it, 
and  smothers  his  heart  lest  it  leap  up,  with  Words- 
worth, when  he  beholds  a  rainbow  in  the  sky.  This 
response  to  nature  is  the  birth  of  art,  which  is  at  its 
highest  pure  praise,  the  expression  of  man's  joy  in  the 
beauty  of  creation.  There  is  a  Mysticism  (the  sworn 
foe  of  culture)  which  dallies  with  the  ascetic  creed, 
and  which  degrades  the  material  in  the  supposed 
interests  of  the  spiritual.  The  mystic  Tauler,  we 
are  told,  used  to  draw  his  cap  over  his  eyes  when 
in  the  country,  that  the  violets  might  not  withdraw 
him  from  his  inward  communion.  That  is  the  weak- 
ness of  his  school,  a  mistake  with  him,  an  affectation 
in  the  weaker  men  who  followed  the  great  mystics. 
A  higher  and  healthier  mysticism  would  be  that 
which  would  see  God  in  the  violets,  and  have  de- 
lighted in  them,  and  have  made  them  an  occasion  for 
adoration  and  praise.  The  absorbed,  abstracted  look, 
under  the  drawn  cap  to  avoid  the  violets,  may  be  but 
the  evidence  of  a  subtler  un faith,  the  un faith  which 
would  empty  the  world  of  God. 

The  aesthetic  ideal  is  also  useful  to-day  as  entering 
a  caveat  to  all  socialistic  schemes,  which  would  ne- 
glect to  provide  full  scope  for  the  individual  Culture, 
even  as  a  pseudo-gospel,  has  value  as  a  protest  against 
all  materialistic  ideals,  socialist  or  otherwise,  which 


THE  ^ESTHETIC  IDEAL —CULTURE    53 

seem  to  think  that  man  can  live  by  bread  alone.  What- 
ever its  shortcomings,  it  believes  with  all  its  soul  that 
life  is  more  than  meat.  It  points  to  spheres  as  essen- 
tial to  the  true  well-being  of  man  as  the  state  of  out- 
ward prosperity,  to  which  the  grumbling  Israelites 
looked  back  with  regret, — "  then  had  we  plenty  of 
victuals,  and  were  we  well."  ^  It  lays  emphasis  on 
the  higher  reaches  of  man's  life,  and  judges  a  civilisa- 
tion by  larger  tests  than  ordinary  commercial  ones. 
It  looks  to  the  quality  of  a  nation's  life,  as  well  as  to 
the  evidences  that  most  appeal  to  the  eye,  and  if  it 
perhaps  exaggerates  the  worth  of  literature,  and  music, 
and  art,  it  helps  to  redress  the  balance,  which  weighs 
heavily  on  the  other  side.  Its  teaching  is  a  variant  of 
the  great  word,  that  the  life  of  a  man  consisteth  not 
in  the  abundance  of  the  things  which  he  possesseth, 
a  lesson  which  men  have  at  all  periods  needed,  but 
which  has  seldom  been  so  necessary  as  in  our  day, 
when  the  first  of  all  problems  is,  how  to  protect  the 
higher  Ufe  of  man  against  secularity.  Our  age  is  so 
severely  and  intensely  practical  that  many  have  little 
patience  with  anything  which  is  not  suffused  with  the 
same  spirit. 

This  has  been  due  partly  to  the  rapid  advance  of 
natural  science,  which  has  dazzled  us  by  the  wonder- 
ful discoveries  which  enable  us  to  use  material  forces. 
The  keenest  and  finest  brains  have  been  directed  to 
scientific  investigations,  and  science  takes  the  place  in 
the  estimation  of  mien  which  formerly  philosophy 
held.  Then,  along  with  the  advance  of  science,  and  as 
a  consequence  of  it,  there  has  been  as  great  an  advance 
of  industry  in  the  application  of  the  forces  of  nature, 
*Jer.   xliv.   17. 


54  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

till  machinery  is  sometimes  more  important  in  modem 
conditions  of  manufacture  than  the  labour  which 
directs  it.  A  material  invention  for  saving  labour  is 
of  much  more  moment,  than  any  amount  of  abstract 
thought.  Everything  has  its  market  value — even  a 
quality  of  brain  can  be  classified,  according  to  the 
wages  it  can  demand.  Naturally  enough^,  in  the  opin- 
ion of  the  mass,  the  active  energetic  life  takes  prece- 
dence over  the  contemplative  life,  and  the  temptation  is 
a  very  real  one  to  look  upon  everything,  which  cannot 
be  rated  in  the  money  market,  as  mere  idleness.  In 
some  business  circles,  for  a  boy  to  wish  to  be  an 
artist  is  to  blast  his  character  with  a  lasting  disgrace, 
and  a  father  would  not  dream  of  encouraging  his  son 
to  become  a  minister,  or  enter  into  a  life  of  study,  and 
would  be  alarmed  and  shocked  to  know  that  he  wrote 
poetry,  though  he  might  forgive  him  if  he  could  write 
popular  novels  and  make  plenty  of  money  by  it.  This 
false  and  vulgar  standard  of  judging  life  plays  endless 
mischief ;  it  even  ruins  our  industry,  and  is  responsible 
for  the  ugliness  and  poor  quality  of  so  njuch  pro- 
duction. The  artistic  spirit  is  killed  in  the  sordid  at- 
mosphere, which  appraises  everything  by  its  price. 
There  are  many  virtues  in  the  eager,  practical,  utili- 
tarian spirit  of  our  age,  and  it  carries  much  hope  in 
its  bosom  for  an  ultimate  social  condition  juster  than 
any  hitherto  reached,  but  this  need  not  blind  us  to  the 
dangers  and  faults  of  our  type  of  life.  However  we 
are  taught  the  lesson,  it  is  well  to  learn  that  the  world 
will  not  be  saved  by  machinery  and  electrical  appli- 
ances, that  these  may  be  developed  to  an  undreamt 
of  degree  and  yet  leave  man  essentially  where  he  is, 
lower  indeed  in  the  scale  of  life  instead  of  higher. 


THE  ESTHETIC  IDEAL— CULTURE    55 

The  end  of  civilisation  is  not  money  but  men,  and 
there  is  a  higher  standard  by  which  to  judge  things 
than  the  standard  of  utiHty,  since  in  Victor  Hugo's 
pregnant  phrase  the  beautiful  is  as  useful  as  the  useful. 
In  a  slightly  different  sphere  also,  the  aesthetic  ideal 
even  in  its  narrowest  sense  is  a  protest  against  scientific 
narrowness.  It  points  to  a  world  of  thought  and 
beauty  beyond  facts  of  observation,  and  will  not  be 
hampered  by  the  limits  of  scientific  evidence,  which 
science  sometimes  dogmatically  lays  down.  Art  and 
science  may  think  they  have  had  more  than  once  a 
just  cause  of  quarrel  with  religion,  but  often  they  have 
a  fiercer  quarrel  with  each  other.  Science  may  nar- 
row the  boundaries  of  Hfe  unduly,  by  insisting  on 
everything  being  submitted  to  the  one  invariable  test. 
Goethe  saw  this,  when  he  said  that  the  constant  use 
of  the  microscope  interferes  with  the  normal  use  of 
the  eye,  by  which  he  suggests  an  explanation  of  the 
failure  of  so  many  scientists  as  philosophers.  It  is 
easy  to  become  absorbed  in  details  and  forget  unity, 
to  be  so  concerned  with  analysis  that  there  is  no  room 
for  the  idea  of  synthesis.  In  addition  to  the  parts 
there  is  the  whole,  and  the  whole  is  more  than  a  sum- 
mation of  the  parts.  Culture  demands  room  for  the 
intuitional  as  well  as  the  rational  faculty,  room  for 
imagination  and  poetry,  and  is  a  witness  to  the  unseen 
and  eternal ;  for  it  affirms  a  soul  of  beauty  and  truth 
behind  and  within  all  material  appearance. 

It  follows  from  this  that  certain  advantages  accrue 
to  the  individual,  who  opens  his  mind  to  the  aesthetic 
ideal;  though  it  is  only  possible  to  touch  lightly  on 
the    more    palpable    of   these    advantages.      It    saves 


56  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

him  from  vulgar  standards;  for  in  the  personal  life 
of  men  culture  dares  to  criticise  success.  It  shows 
its  disciples  that  there  are  larger  things  in  the  world 
than  getting  on,  and  more  worthy  things  to  worship 
than  the  great  goddess  of  prosperity.  Its  eyes  are 
open  to  the  defects  of  the  quality,  which  the  world 
acclaims  and  loads  with  honour  and  wealth.  In  the 
man  of  culture,  as  in  the  saint  on  another  level  of 
things,  we  find  an  abstraction  from  common-place 
ways,  a  point  of  view  'vhich  somehow  puts  things  in 
a  different  perspective  than  the  usual  one.  They  look 
at  events  without  being  absorbed  in  the  mere  mass. 
They  come  to  the  ordinary  affairs  of  life  as  from  a 
high  platform  of  thought,  from  a  serener  air,  and  put 
them  in  their  right  place  of  precedence,  and  by  their 
very  manner  we  are  able  to  see  the  smallness  of  the 
small  and  the  greatness  of  the  great.  -  To  them  truth 
even  on  the  scaffold  is  still  truth,  and  wrong  even  on 
the  throne  is  still  wrong,  however  many  voices  shout 
the  contrary.  •  They  classify  according  to  a  finer  scale 
of  judgment,  and  it  is  good  to  be  reminded  of  the  true 
proportion  of  things.  Such  men  of  ripe  nature  and 
poised  mind  may  be  practically  wrong,  so  far  as  their 
verdict  on  an  outward  event  seems  to  go,  but  they 
are  aesthetically  right,  and  at  least  we  are  forced  to 
acknowledge  the  loftiness  of  their  standard.  We 
need  some  of  this  calm  self-command,  which  will  keep 
us  from  being  rushed  off  our  feet  by  the  brute  force 
of  outside  opinion  or  feeling  or  passion. 

A  cognate  benefit  is  that  culture  saves  from  provin- 
cialism and  narrowness  of  interest,  to  which  we  are 
so  prone.  It  suggests  catholic  ideas,  and  gives  to 
every  subject  a  touch  of  the  universal,  which  will  at 


THE  ^ESTHETIC  IDEAL  —  CULTURE    57 

least  often  preserve  us  from  dogmatism.  The  attitud<i 
of  mental  hospitality,  which  opens  the  door  to  large 
thoughts  and  receives  them  as  welcome  guests,  tends 
to  evict  the  prejudices  and  narrowness,  which  would 
otherwise  dwell  securely  in  the  mind.  Life  needs  new 
vistas  to  be  ever  opening  up,  to  save  it  from  atrophy  of 
its  best  powers.  To  create  intellectual  alertness  and 
enlarge  the  radius  of  interest  is  no  small  boon,  as  we 
see  if  we  think  of  the  common  conversation  among 
people  even  in  educated  circles,  how  limited  it  is,  work- 
ing over  a  few  threadbare  topics  with  hardly  an  idea 
in  them,  concerned  chiefly  with  personalities.  When 
the  weather  and  a  few  kindred  subjects  are  exhausted, 
with  some  people,  the  possibilities  are  exhausted, 
till  one  sometimes  feels  that  if  expression  were  given 
to  a  great  vital  thought  in  ordinary  society,  it  would 
be  like  the  bursting  of  a  bomb-shell  in  their  midst.  In 
a  country  place  we  know  how  refreshing  it  is,  and 
how  rare,  to  talk  to  a  man  whose  horizon  is  not 
bounded  by  his  village,  and  whose  conversation  is 
larger  than  the  doings  and  sayings  of  the  few  families 
who  make  up  what  is  called  society  there;  and  the 
same  provincialism  is  to  be  found  in  cities,  in  kind 
if  not  in  degree.  Culture,  by  training  powers  of 
thought  and  observation,  at  least  gives  a  man  a  wider 
outlook. 

Thus,  it  broadens  a  man's  judgments,  as  well  as  his 
interests.  He  gradually  gains  capacity  to  see  round  a 
subject,  which  keeps  him  from  onesidedness,  before 
coming  to  a  final  judgment.  The  world  would  have 
been  saved  from  many  a  silly  theory,  many  a  crude 
system,  many  a  delirium  of  passion,  if  more  men  were 
able  through  training  to  come  to  an  informed,  and 


58  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

therefore  a  calm,  decision.  This  indeed  is  the  chief 
value  of  the  best  education,  not  the  amount  of  informa- 
tion in  itself  which  has  been  gathered  in  the  course  of 
the  education.  The  mere  mass  of  knowledge  in  sci- 
ence, or  mathematics,  or  classical  learning,  retained  in 
after-life  from  an  ordinary  university  course,  is  in 
itself  in  most  cases  not  much.  The  worth  of  it  lies 
in  the  intellectual  outlook  it  has  given,  the  habits  ot 
thought  and  attention  it  has  formed,  the  standards  of 
comparison  and  judgment  it  has  implanted  in  the  mind. 

Further,  a  steadfast  pursuit  of  some  such  ideal  is 
the  truest  recreation.  Our  work  often  narrows  us. 
fti  many  cases  under  present  industrial  conditions 
this  cannot  be  helped,  as  the  best  commercial  results 
are  produced  by  specialism,  not  only  in  manual  labour, 
but  in  every  branch  of  activity.  We  ought  therefore  to 
try  and  adjust  the  balance  somewhat,  by  entering  into 
the  wider  world  of  the  best  human  thought.  It  is  the 
finest  recreation;  for  it  restores  the  mind  to  healthy 
conditions  and  enlarges  the  vision.  The  result  will  be 
even  beneficial  to  the  particular  work,  since  whatever 
enriches  and  reinforces  the  complete  nature  will  affect 
each  part.  Such  is  the  aim  of  all  true  recreation,  to 
so  recuperate  the  life  that  it  will  restore  vigour  every- 
where. It  is  the  quality  of  life  to  spread  its  power 
to  the  utmost  limits  of  its  confines,  as  health  tingles  to 
the  very  finger-tips.  For  the  sake  then  of  the  very 
capacity  to  produce,  on  which  the  modern  world  lays 
so  much  stress,  it  is  well  to  have  such  an  unfailing 
source  of  refreshment  and  recreation  as  the  ideal  of 
culture  offers. 

Much  of  the  moral  evil,  which  is  associated  with 
methods  of  recreation,  is   due  to  the  miseries  of  a 


THE  ^ESTHETIC  IDEAL  —  CULTURE    59 

vacant  life,  that  has  no  other  outlet  to  hand  when 
the  daily  tasks  are  done.  Many  of  the  sins  of  youth 
are  fostered  by  emptiness  of  mind,  by  sheer  lack  of 
intellectual  interests.  They  can  only  be  driven  out  and 
kept  out,  by  claiming  the  whole  territory  of  the  mind 
for  higher  things.  A  young  man  cannot  expect  to 
be  saved  from  the  crowding  seductions  of  the  streets, 
which  pluck  him  by  the  elbow  at  every  turn,  if  he  has 
no  interests  that  fill  his  thoughts,  and  is  living  an 
aimless  mental  life.  Mark  Rutherford,  in  a  chapter  ^ 
wonderful  for  its  delicate  psychological  study,  tells 
how  he  overcame  the  temptation  which  wine  had  grad- 
ually assumed  over  him.  He  had  been  led  into  it  by 
physical  weakness  and  the  more  stubborn  weakness  of 
hypochondria,  and  when  he  felt  his  misery  insupport- 
able he  turned  to  the  bottle.  When  he  wakened  up  to 
the  fact  that  the  craving  for  it  was  getting  the  better 
of  him,  he  resolved  never  to  touch  it  except  at  night, 
but  the  consequence  of  this  was  that  he  looked  for- 
ward to  the  night  with  such  eagerness,  that  the  day 
seemed  to  exist  only  for  the  sake  of  the  evening. 
The  thought  of  the  degradation  this  implied,  and  es- 
pecially the  knowledge  that  his  intellectual  interests 
were  suffering  from  his  temptation,  spurred  him  to  the 
determination  that  he  would  not  allow  his  life  to  be- 
come thus  debased.  He  played  his  love  of  reading 
and  thinking  over  against  the  tempter,  and  drove  him 
out;  and  so  conquered  not  by  brute  strength  but  by 
strategy.'  The  most  powerful  inducement  to  absti- 
nence in  his  case  was  the  interference  of  wine  with 
what  he  really  loved  best,  and  the  transference  of  de- 
sire from  what  was  more  desirable  to  what  was 
*  The  Autobiography  of  Mark  Rutherford,  chap.  iii. 


6o  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

sensual  and  base.  What  enabled  him  to  conquer 
was  not  so  much  heroism  as  a  susceptibility  to 
nobler  joys.  So  potent  a  motive  in  his  particular 
experience  was  this,  that  he  thinks  the  difficulty 
which  must  be  encountered  in  the  same  task  by  a  man 
who  is  not  susceptible  to  these  intellectual  pleasures, 
must  be  enormous  and  almost  insuperable.  It  is  not 
too  high  a  claim,  therefore,  to  make  for  culture  that 
it  sometimes  offers  a  purifying  power,  by  which  a 
man  rises  above  meaner  pleasures  through  the  wide 
expansion  of  life,  and  that  it  gives  the  promise  of  a 
rich  and  full  nature,  which  can  give  the  autumnal 
felicity  of  men  of  letters,  to  which  Gibbon  ^  looked 
forward  for  the  evening  of  his  days. 

Again,  whatever  be  its  danger  of  a  subtler  egotism 
which  we  shall  notice  in  next  chapter,  culture  at  its 
best  corrects  the  ordinary  vanity  of  ignorance,  and 
it  should  not  be  forgotten  that  "  the  pride  of  science 
is  humble  compared  with  the  pride  of  ignorance." 
The  man  of  one  idea,  of  one  subject,  unless  it  be 
the  subject  which  includes  all  and  attempts  to  take 
within  its  scope  all  life,  loses  the  power  of  comparison, 
and  in  his  zeal  for  his  fragment  of  truth  obscures  the 
proportions  of  truth,  and  even  runs  the  risk  of  be- 
coming inflated  with  personal  vanity.  If  he  had  the 
true  balance  he  could  not  be  vain,  and  the  balance 
can  only  come  from  a  larger  variety  of  interest  and  a 
wider  range  of  thought.  Culture  would  show  him 
how  large  the  universe  is  and  would  save  him  from 
himself.  It  is  something  to  know  that  there  were 
kings  before  Agamemnon,  and  that  everything  that 
exists  can  only  be  explained  with  reference  to  what 

^Memoirs,  last  page. 


NIVER 


THE  ^ESTHETIC  IDEAL  —  CULTURE    6i 

has  gone  before.  A  surface  study  of  history  may 
indeed  tend  to  the  lowering  of  conviction  and  the  im- 
poverishing of  moral  energy,  by  revealing  the  slow 
growth  of  opinions  and  habits  and  all  human  insti- 
tutions; but  it  should  at  least  impress  some  lesson 
of  humility.  Intellectual  culture,  if  conducted  on  a 
broad  enough  scheme,  should  be  an  antidote  to  nar- 
row conceit.  True  knowledge  of  the  world,  of  men, 
of  books,  of  history,  of  thought,  can  hardly  consist 
with  an  inflated  opinion  of  one's  own  importance. 
Egotism  is  an  unfailing  sign  of  insufficient  culture ;  for 
true  culture  makes  a  man  bigger  than  his  habitat.  ^  It 
is  ignorance,  not  knowledge,  which  makes  rash  judg- 
ments, and  which  settles  things  by  prejudice,  v 

We  have  spoken  of  culture,  rightly  understood, 
as  the  servant  of  religion,  and  if  it  even  tends  to 
foster  the  virtues  mentioned  above  it  must  be  so; 
but  in  addition  it  should  be  the  servant  of  religious 
people  in  other  ways,  if  only  by  widening  the  out- 
look. Many  of  the  mistakes  of  religion  are  due  to 
the  lack  of  it,  due  to  the  failure  to  claim  every 
region  of  man's  life  for  religion.  Culture,  for  one 
thing,  would  preserve  from  zeal  without  knowledge. 
It  is  often  thought  that  zeal  is  a  sufficient  excuse 
for  almost  anything;  but  there  is  hardly  a  cruelty, 
or  uncharitableness,  or  loveless  intolerance,  or  arro- 
gance, which  could  not  be  justified  on  the  same 
score.  Largeness  of  view,  breadth  of  interest  would 
save  from  the  petty  narrowness  which  disfigures  so 
many  religious  characters.  Culture  also  would  keep 
a  man  from  going  to  Genesis  for  his  science,  or  to 
the  modern  novel  for  his  theology.  It  should  make 
us  appreciate  even  opponents,  by  giving  us  insight 


62  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

into  their  standpoint  and  sympathy  with  their  very 
mistakes.  A  broad  culture,  which  enters  with  insight 
into  all  human  life,  and  into  the  great  causes  that  have 
moved  men,  should  result  in  an  enlargement  of  sym- 
pathy; though  this  is  often  sadly  lacking  in  some, 
from  whom  we  expect  sufficient  knowledge  to  give  the 
large  vision.  M.  Arnold  asks  us  to  imagine  Shake- 
speare or  Virgil  on  board  the  Mayflower,  and  sug- 
gests what  strange  unsympathetic  fellow-travellers 
they  would  make  with  the  Pilgrim  Fathers.  He  has 
made  surely  a  singularly  inappropriate  choice  of  ex- 
amples. Dante  at  least  thought  that  Virgil's  spirit 
was  so  akin  to  his,  that  he  made  him  the  guide 
through  Purgatory,  and  classed  him  as  near  a  Chris- 
tian as  any  pre-Christian  man  could  be.  It  may  be 
that  the  Puritan  fathers,  who  sailed  on  the  Mayflower, 
might  not  completely  appreciate  Shakespeare,  though 
it  must  be  remembered  that  the  Puritan  objection  to 
the  drama  was  not  necessarily  due  to  want  of  appre- 
ciation of  dramatic  literature,  but  due  to  the  recog"- 
nition  of  the  evil  conditions  that  have  too  often  been 
associated  with  the  theatre.  But  in  any  case  even 
though  the  Puritan  fathers  might  not  have  appre- 
ciated Shakespeare,  there  is  no  doubt  that  Shake- 
speare would  have  appreciated  them.  As  a  fact  there 
are  many  evidences  to  a  diligent  and  keen  reader  of 
his  works  that  he  did  appreciate  the  truths,  which  after 
all,  in  spite  of  any  possible  extravagances,  are  at  the 
bottom  of  the  Puritan  faith.  It  is  not  a  very  prom- 
ising sign  for  the  existence  of  the  true  culture,  if  a 
man  cannot  enter  with  some  sympathy  into  the  heroic 
aspiration,,  which  has  embalmed  the  Mayflower  in 
history.    As  a  question  of  mere  sensibility  to  human 


THE  iESTHETIC  IDEAL  —  CULTURE    63 

achievements,  there  are  some  things,  which  have  no 
seeming  art  about  them,  which  should  inspire  as  much 
admiration  as  the  finest  picture  ever  painted. 

It  has  to  be  recognised  that  even  as  a  self-sufficient 
ideal  claiming  to  represent  man's  chief  end,  culture  is 
a  much  higher  ideal  than  many  which  have  appealed 
to  men,  such  as  the  philosophy,  both  speculative  and 
practical,  which  makes  happiness  the  end.  Culture 
looksto  pecomincr,  not  to  having,  or  enipyipg"  merely. 
It  sees  that  life  only  truly  maintains  itself  in  any 
sphere  through  growth;  arid  it  would  use  growth  to 
reach  as  full  a  maturity  and  ripeness  of  character  as 
possible.  It  makes  deliberate  choice  of  the  materials 
for  growthrin  ^r3er  to  attain  complete  self-develop- 
ment  .  It  would  appropriate  its  share  of  the  common 

wealth  of  the  world,  to  enrich  the  personality,  and  to 
educate  all  the  faculties^  So  far  as  it  goes,  this  is  a 
noble  ideal,  and  should  be  looked  on  not  merely  as  a 
right,  which  may  be  claimed  for  self,  but  as  a  duty 
which  should  be  imposed  on  self*  To  be  sensitive  to 
all  the  influences  of  the  beauty  of  the  world,  and 
susceptible  to  all  life's  sweetest  music,  and  responsive 
to  all  the  enriching  and  enlarging  thoughts  of  the 
race,  must  always  be.  marks  of  the  highest  mind$^ 
There  may  bejgood  reasons,  either  personal  to  oneself- 
or  due  to  special  social  conditions,  why  it  may  be 
necessary  to  pass  a  self-denying  ordinance  regarding 
some  legitimate  item  of  the  programme  of  culture.  It 
may  be  necessary  for  some  to  live  as  though  art.  or 
literature,  or  music  did  not  exist,  and  there  will  al- 
ways be  occasions  when  duty  will  point  to  some  form 
of  renunciation,  when  the  culture  of  soul  will  take 


64  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

precedence  of  every  other  thing,  or  when  the  imperi- 
ous call  to  service  will  make  all  else  become  as  dross  in 
value. 

But  such  occasions  do  not  invalidate  the  claim  of 
culture,  that  these  fruits  of  the  human  spirit  are  good, 
and  that  Beauty  and  Truth  are  rightful  objects  for 
men  to  put  before  themselves.  Otherwise,  art  and 
science  could  only  exist  on  sufferance  in  a  world, 
which  they  are  engaged  in  interpreting  to  men,  the 
one  in  terms  of  beauty,  the  other  m  terms  of  truth. 
Science  may  be  misused  as  an  instrument  of  secu- 
larity,  and  art  may  be  degraded  into  a  "  procuress  to 
the  lords  of  hell,"  but  it  seems  to  be  of  the  very  nature 
of  the  best  gifts  that  they  easily  lend  themselves  to 
abuse,  as  the  history  of  all  human  institutionsj  and 
even  the  history  of  religion  itself,  show — corruptio 
optimi  pessima. 

Nothing  can  permanently  take  from  man  the  convic- 
tion that  he  was  meant  to  possess  these  fields  which 
culture  offers,  to  master  them  for  his  own  best  life  and 
for  the  world's  true  joy.  To  ban  the  love  of  beauty, 
to  stifle  inquiry  mto  truths  to  be  blind  to  the  fascina- 
tion of  art  and  letters,  is  in  the  ultimate  issue 
infidelity,  though  it  seem  sometimes  to  be  in  the  inter- 
est of  faith.  Faith  cannot  be  made  perfect,  till  she 
accepts  the  divine  self-revelation  through  beauty,  and 
through  law,  as  well  as  through  love.  Though  it  may 
be  that  now  we  see  many  points  of  conflict,  yet  it 
must  remain  the  deepest  faith  that,  when  the  full 
yision  is  reached,  nothing  that  is  true  in  science,  or 
beautiful  in  art,  will  need  to  be  sacrificed  in  the  com- 
plete round  of  religion.    Even  now,  when  faith  opens 


THE  iESTHETIC  IDEAL  —  CULTURE    65 

the  ears,  how  often  it  is  that  the  very  prophets  of 
nature  can  speak  to  us  a  lasting  inspiration,  and  the 
masters  of  culture  can — 

Instruct  us  how  the  mind  of  man  becomes 

A  thousand  times  more  beautiful  than  the  earth. 


Ill 

DEFECTS  OF  THE  ESTHETIC  IDEAL 

IN  spite  of  the  great  truth  of  the  aesthetic  ideal, 
and  the  distinct  value  it  has  both  as  a  theory  of 
life  and  as  a  practical  scheme  for  enriching  the 
whole  nature  of  man,  when  taken  by  itself  it  has 
always  failed  in  the  long  run,  not  only  in  making  life 
nobler  and  sweeter,  but  has  failed  even  in  keeping  it- 
self true  to  its  own  best  self.  The  causes  of  its  failure 
are  not  far  to  seek,  when  we  realise  some  of  the  be- 
setting temptations  which  ever  attend  it.  Culture, 
when  it  takes  the  highest  footing  as  a  self-sufficient 
ideal  claiming  to  cover  all  the  ground,  starts  from  the 
position  that  all  that  is  needed  to  reach  the  perfect 
man  is  the  consistent  and  persistent  cultivation  of  all 
the  powers  and  tendencies  already  existing  in  human 
nature;  it  seeks  to  give  full  play  to  all  sides  of  life, 
and  hopes  to  arrive  at  a  harmonious  balance  of  all  the 
innate  capacities.  We  can  see  how  easily  this  can 
degenerate  into  base  compliance  with  personal  lean- 
ings, and  how  even  it  can  be  made  an  excuse  for  all 
forms  of  selfishness,  sometimes  indeed  going  so  low 
as  to  offer  a  justification  for  the  most  heart-withering 
sensualism.  If  the  one  aim  of  life  is  that  a  man  should 
unfold  himself,  he  can  argue  that  he  is  only  following 
his  nature,  by  tasting  every  sort  of  experience,  and 
giving  full  play  to  every  impulse.    From  such  a  creed 

66 


DEFECTS  OF  THE  ^ESTHETIC  IDEAL    67 

he  can  cozen  himself  with  the  thought  that  he  is 
learning  life  and  fulfilling  himself,  by  indulging  every 
instinct  which  he  finds  within  him.  We  often  find  a 
bluntness  of  moral  sense  and  a  deep-seated  selfishness 
of  life,  combined  with  a  high  degree  of  intellectual 
training.  This  of  course  could  not  be  laid  to  the 
charge  of  culture,  except  in  so  far  as  it  claims  to  be 
a  sufficient  guide  to  life,  and  yet  does  not  adequately 
safeguard  life  from  the  moral  dangers  that  menace  it. 
We  are  beset  with  the  temptation  to  give  way  at  the 
point  of  least  resistance,  and  if  we  have  no  moral 
sanctions,  no  imperial  note  of  conscience,  other  than  is 
contained  in  a  scheme  of  natural  culture,  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  get  firm  ground  in  maintaining  an  ethical  stand- 
ard, that  will  not  be  pliable  in  the  presence  of  keen 
personal  tastes,  not  to  say  even  in  the  presence  of  any 
overmastering  temptation.  When  a  man  begins  with 
the  theory  that  every  impulse  only  needs  its  due  culti- 
vation to  make  it  contribute  to  a  fulness  of  life,  he  is 
easily  deceived  into  giving  way  to  what  he  likes  best, 
and  defending  it  as  part  of  his  plan  to  develop  himself 
along  the  line  of  his  nature. 

It  would  be  untrue  to  suggest  that  moral  laxity 
is  a  feature  of  character  to  be  discovered  in  the  lives 
of  the  men  who  have  rigorously  pursued  a  large 
scheme  of  culture — rather  we  have  admitted  that  such 
a  scheme  should  save  the  life  from  grosser  pleasures 
and  meaner  sins — at  the  same  time,  if  accepted  gen- 
erally without  modifications  as  a  theory  of  life,  it 
offers  very  evident  opportunities  for  great  abuses.  It 
may  of  course  be  asserted  that  it  is  only  when  the 
theory  is  falsely  viewed  and  wrongly  used  that  it  seems 
to  open  the  door  to  these  darker  excesses.    It  may  be 


68  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

asserted  that  a  complete  scheme  of  culture  would  pro- 
vide moral  and  spiritual  training,  and  would  make  a 
man  susceptible  to  all  noble  influences,  and  would  in 
any  moral  crisis  call  for  adherence  to  the  good,  even 
though  it  promise  to  bring  only  unhappiness ;  but  this 
after  all  is  imported  into  the  theory  and  is  an  arbitrary 
standard,  and  does  not  spring  naturally  out  of  the 
original  position.  From  the  premises  stated  we  are 
not  justified  in  condemning  another,  because  he 
chooses  for  himself  a  lower  type  of  experience  and 
a  grosser  form  of  pleasure  than  we  perhaps  would 
approve  for  ourselves.  There  will  always  be  a  moral 
danger  attached  to  culture  as  a  system,  when  it  is 
not  regulated  and  restrained  by  deeper  sanctions.  We 
easily  enough  fall  into  its  plan  of  seeking  experiences 
and  an  ampler  sphere  of  thought  and  emotion,  but  for 
safety  this  natural  craving  needs  to  be  under  the  firm 
rule  not  only  of  enlightened  reason  but  also  of  self- 
controlled  will. 

So  real  is  this  danger  that  Walter  Pater,  who  is  a 
foremost  apostle  of  the  new  Hellenism,  left  out  of 
the  second  edition  of  his  Renaissance  the  chapter  in 
which  he  summed  up  the  creed  of  culture,  because 
he  conceived  it  might  possibly  mislead  some  of  those 
young  men  into  whose  hands  it  might  fall — and  with 
some  reason,  as  the  chapter,  restored  with  some 
changes  in  subsequent  editions,  still  testifies.  It  states 
very  frankly  his  philosophy,  which  is  worked  out  in 
his  brilliant  study  of  the  sensations  and  ideas  of 
Marius  the  Epicurean.  It  is  a  restatement  in  artistic 
form  and  beautiful  language  of  the  old  "  sensational " 
philosophy.  To  him  our  physical  life  is  a  perpetual 
motion  of  impressions  with  some  exquisite  intervals, 


DEFECTS  OF  THE  ^ESTHETIC  IDEAL    69 

and  the  inward  world  of  mind  consists  of  a  drift  of 
momentary  acts  of  sight  and  passion  and  thought,  so 
that  life  is  like  a  flame  eagerly  being  devoured,  or  like 
the  race  of  a  swift  stream  on  which  a  tremulous  wisp 
forms  and  reforms  itself  as  it  breaks  into  conscious- 
ness. All  our  knowledge  is  not  of  solid  subjects  as 
common  speech  puts  it,  but  of  impressions  unstable, 
flickering,  which  burn  and  are  extinguished  at  the 
precise  moment  we  know  them.  These  impressions  are 
in  constant  flight,  sensations  that  hardly  exist  before 
they  cease  to  be.  The  service  of  speculative  culture 
towards  the  human  spirit  in  such  a  plight  is  to  rouse, 
to  startle  it  to  a  life  of  constant  and  eager  observation. 
The  true  purpose  of  life  is  not  to  gain  the  fruits  of  ex- 
perience to  be  stored  up  in  character,  but  experience 
itself  is  the  only  and  sufficient  end,  to  attain  to  some 
attractive  mood  of  passion,  or  insight,  or  intellectual 
excitement.  In  the  quick  pulsation  of  this  evanescent 
life,  the  great  aim  should  be  to  pass  most  swiftly  from 
point  to  point,  and  if  possible  contrive  to  "  be  present 
always  at  the  focus  where  the  greatest  number  of  vital 
forces  unite  in  their  purest  energy.  To  burn  always 
with  this  hard  gem-like  flame,  to  maintain  this  ecstasy, 
is  success  in  life."  The  stereotyped,  the  fixed,  the 
formation  of  habits,  settled  theories  of  knowledge,  or 
systems  of  morality,  all  are  signs  of  failure.  There  is 
a  great  deal  to  be  taken  out  of  life,  gathering  all  we 
are  into  one  desperate  effort  to  see  and  touch,  and  we 
have  a  tragically  short  time  to  do  it  in.  "  While  all 
melts  under  our  feet,  we  may  well  grasp  at  any  exqui- 
site passion,  or  any  contribution  to  knowledge  that 
seems  by  a  lifted  horizon  to  set  the  spirit  free  for  a 
moment,  or  any  stirring  of  the  senses,  strange  dyes, 


70  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

strange  colours,  and  curious  odours,  or  work  of  the 
artist's  hands,  or  the  face  of  one's  friend.  .  .  .  What 
we  have  to  do  is  to  be  ever  curiously  testing  new 
opinions  and  courting  new  impressions.  .  .  .  The 
theory  or  idea  or  system  which  requires  of  us  the 
sacrifice  of  this  experience,  in  consideration  of  some 
interest  into  which  we  cannot  enter,  or  some  abstract 
theory  we  have  not  identified  with  ourselves,  or  of 
what  is  only  conventional,  has  no  real  claim  upon  us."  ^ 
In  plain  English  it  amounts  to  the  well-worn  philos- 
ophy of  a  short  life  and  a  merry  one,  more  high- 
toned  than  the  common  quality,  because  it  puts  the 
emphasis  on  the  higher  pleasures  of  the  mind,  and 
believes  that  the  truest  and  best  things  to  seek  are 
wisdom,  the  poetic  passion,  the  desire  of  beauty,  love 
of  art  for  its  own  sake.  But  if  there  be  no  other 
foundation  for  life  but  this,  if  the  only  ideal  is  how 
to  make  the  most  possible  of  the  interval  before  the 
flame  burns  itself  out,  does  it  follow  that  it  is  so  very 
much  wiser  to  spend  the  time  in  art  and  song,  than 
to  spend  it  as  some  do  in  listlessness,  and  others  in 
high  passion?  What  is  to  be  said  to  the  man  who 
adopts  the  creed,  but  prefers  the  more  vulgar  way  of 
getting  as  many  pulsations  as  possible  into  the  given 
time,  if  he  thinks  the  pursuit  of  art  too  attenuated  a 
point  of  sensation,  and  too  exquisite  for  his  coarser 
grain  of  nature?  There  is  nothing  to  be  said  to  him, 
except  that  it  might  have  been  wiser  to  have  tried  for 
the  higher  sort  of  pulsation.  It  has  been  a  common 
but  a  puerile  thought  of  modern  Hellenism  that  we 
might  reach  the  fruits  of  early  Greek  culture  by  emu- 
lating the  idle  curiosity  of  the  Athenians  of  St.  Paul's 

*  Pater,  Renaissance,  last  chap. 


DEFECTS  OF  THE  ^ESTHETIC  IDEAL  71 

day,^  who  spent  their  time  in  nothing  else  but  either  to 
tell  or  to  hear  some  new  thing ;  but  it  is  forgotten  that 
there  was  no  culture  in  Athens  at  that  time;  art  and 
literature,  and  thought,  and  political  life  were  at  their 
lowest,  swallowed  up  in  a  great  degradation.  The 
real  truth  is  that  on  Pater's  basal  philosophy  there  is 
no  adequate  foundation  even  for  a  permanent  culture, 
to  say  nothing  of  a  foundation  for  life. 

It  may  be  said  at  this  point  that  alongside  of  such 
a  creed  of  despair  the  religious  man  has  a  far  grander 
conception  of  even  culture,  not  limited  to  a  hurried 
grasp  at  all  sorts  of  experience,  in  case  he  might 
miss  some  interesting  one  that  might  set  his  spirit  free 
for  a  moment.  To  him  it  is  not  experience  that  is 
the  end  (that  can  only  result  in  Epicureanism),  but 
the  fruit  of  experience  in  a  wise  mind,  a  ripened  char- 
acter, a  sanctified  spirit.  So  he  is  not  exclusively  con- 
cerned about  gathering  all  his  energies  into  one  des- 
perate effort  to  see  and  touch,  and  he  is  even  willing 
to  sacrifice  some  part  of  his  possible  experiences  in 
consideration  of  a  higher  interest.  Living  in  the 
power  of  an  endless  life,  he  accepts  the  world  as  a 
school  of  discipline,  in  which  he  is  to  become  some- 
thing, as  well  as  enjoy  something.  The  greatest  agent 
for  enlargement  of  life  is  true  religion,  which  Pater 
leaves  out  of  account.  It  includes  culture,  and  tran- 
scends it ;  for  it  assures  a  man  that  these  experiences, 
which  enter  into  character,  and  which  make  him  the 
man  he  becomes,  do  not  break  like  bubbles  on  a  stream. 
It  lifts  a  man  among  the  infinities  and  immensities, 
bringing  reverence,  and  education  of  heart,  and  the 
wide  vision. 

*  Acts,  xvii.  21. 


11  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

From  Pater's  position  we  can  see  why  he  should 
deprecate  the  making  of  theories  about  the  things  we 
see  and  touch,  holding,  as  he  does,  that  all  our  time 
should  be  given  to  actually  entering  into  the  expe- 
riences open  to  us ;  though  the  position  is  not  quite  log- 
ical, as  this  conclusion  is  itself  built  on  a  theory, 
namely,  that  all  our  knowledge  is  confined  to  impres- 
sions. But  this  attitude  of  despair  regarding  the  pos- 
sibilities of  man's  mind  would  result  in  the  death  of 
even  intellectual  culture,  which  could  only  look  for 
nimbleness  of  mind  in  laying  hold  of  the  prominent 
features  of  a  subject,  but  without  capacity  of  long 
sustained  thought.  Even  in  intellectual  circles  it  is 
common  to  find  men  who  think  keenly  of  each  thing 
as  it  comes,  but  who  never  seem  to  feel  the  need  of 
co-ordinating  their  thinking  and  finding  a  unity. 
They  look  at  things  closely  and  critically,  but  in  a 
disconnected  way.  No  doubt  they  are  saved  from 
much  of  the  pain  of  thought,  as  they  are  saved  from 
the  malady  of  the  ideal,  but  it  is  at  the  expense  of  the 
highest  power  in  man.  Man  can  only  resign  this 
necessity,  by  at  the  same  time  resigning  himself  to 
conscious  smallness.  We  need  not  underline  also  the 
distinct  moral  danger,  apart  altogether  from  the  possi- 
bility of  gross  abuse.  The  attempt  to  put  into  life  as 
much  as  possible,  to  value  it  by  the  number  of  pulsa- 
tions of  sensation,  to  keep  in  touch  with  all  sorts  of 
varied  interest,  carries  with  it  the  temptation  to  seek 
this  in  excitements,  in  distractions,  and  to  grow  only 
on  the  surface  without  the  steady  deep  virtues.  This 
is  a  temptation  to  which  all  forms  of  culture  taken  by 
itself  are  liable,  giving  a  lack  of  moral  perspective,  if 
not  of  moral  appreciation  itself. 


DEFECTS  OF  THE  .ESTHETIC  IDEAL  73 

An  illustration  of  the  way  in  which  the  things  of 
conscience  are  made  light  of,  in  comparison  with  some 
supposed  more  attractive  development,  is  found  in 
Pater's  treatment  of  Winckelmann  in  his  studies  on 
the  Renaissance.  Winckelmann  was  chosen  by  him 
as  the  most  typical  modern,  who  showed  as  in  an  after- 
glow the  spirit  of  the  Renaissance  by  his  enthusiasm 
for  the  things  of  the  intellect  and  the  imagination,  by 
his  Hellenism,  his  life-long  struggle  to  attain  to  the 
Greek  spirit.  When  the  Saxon  Court  turned  Roman 
Catholic,  the  way  to  favour  at  Court  was  through  the 
Roman  ecclesiastics ;  and  Winckelmann,  in  the  hope 
of  a  place  in  the  Pope's  library,  and  thus  getting  an 
opportunity  of  visiting  Rome  on  which  he  had  set  his 
heart,  became  a  Roman  Catholic  against  his  belief. 
Pater  thinks  he  may  be  absolved  at  the  bar  of  the  high- 
est criticism  for  the  deceit,  and  defends  the  insincerity 
of  his  religious  profession  as  "  only  one  incident  of  a 
culture  in  which  the  moral  instinct,  like  the  religious 
or  political,  was  merged  in  the  artistic."  ^  He  sug- 
gests that  Winckelmann  was  making  a  renunciation  of 
moral  candour  for  the  sake  of  the  higher  life,  which 
to  him  meant  the  artistic  interest,  and  that  thus  in 
reality  he  was  true  to  himself.  There  is  no  word  to 
designate  this  defence  but  the  ugly  word  "  cant,"  of 
which  there  are  various  kinds  as  well  as  the  distinct- 
ively religious  type.  To  speak  of  the  renunciation  of 
conscience  for  the  sake  of  the  higher  life,  to  be  ad- 
vanced by  selling  himself  in  exchange  for  an  oppor- 
tunity of  examining  the  art  treasures  of  Rome,  is  to 
play  with  words.  Far  truer  is  Pater's  earlier  judg- 
ment, with  which  he  might  have  left  the  incident,  that 

^Renaissance,  p.  198. 


74  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

to  a  transparent,  simple  nature  like  Winckelmann* s  the 
loss  of  absolute  sincerity  must  have  been  a  real  loss. 
We  admit  and  reverence  the  high  artistic  aim  which 
made  Winckelmann  say,  "  It  will  be  my  highest  reward 
if  posterity  acknowledges  that  I  have  written  worthily," 
but  the  mistake  which  many  culturists  make  is  to  sup- 
pose that  the  life  of  man  can  be  cut  up  into  sections, 
making  the  intellectual  stand  by  itself  apart  from  the 
moral;  whereas  each  part  affects  the  whole,  and  the 
whole  affects  each  part.  The  theoretic  isolation  from  the 
moral  side  of  life  is  impossible  in  practice.  Indiffer- 
entism,  probed  to  the  heart,  invariably  means  the  ad- 
herence to  a  lower  creed,  and  the  choice  of  a  lower 
plane  of  thought  and  life.  There  never  was  a  more 
inept  and  foolish  remark  than  the  common  one,  that 
it  does  not  matter  what  a  man  believes.  A  man's  faith 
is  the  vital  principle  which  moves  his  life,  and  infalli- 
bly shows  the  lines  on  which  it  is  run.  The  liberality 
of  mind  and  width  of  tolerance,  which  are  due  to  moral 
indifference,  mean  facile  acceptance  of  any  creed,  and 
result  practically  in  acquiescence  in  the  present  state 
of  the  public  conscience. 

Judged  from  the  standpoint  of  the  higher  ethics 
any  theory,  which  makes  self-culture  the  absolute  ideal, 
cannot  be  acquitted  also  of  selfishness,  which  comes 
from  the  lack  of  moral  perspective.  To  take  another 
concrete  illustration  from  the  life  of  a  great  man  of 
culture,  the  charge  of  selfishness,  which  has  some- 
times been  made  against  Goethe,  is  perhaps  hardly  a 
fair  one  in  the  usual  acceptance  of  the  word;  for 
he  was  generous  by  nature,  was  habitually  kind  in  a 
somewhat  cold  way,  was  genial  in  all  his  relations, 
though  he  never  forgot  himself,  and  indeed  systemat- 


DEFECTS  OF  THE  .ESTHETIC  IDEAL  75 

ically  cultivated  the  sympathetic  feelings  as  part  of 
his  scheme,  because  he  saw  from  his  large  keen  view 
of  life  that  these  also  were  essential  to  the  complete  cul- 
ture he  aimed  at ;  but  he  allowed  no  thought  of  others 
to  interfere  with  his  serene  scheme  of  self-culture,  and 
warded  off  as  much  as  possible  every  uncomfortable 
contact.  He  suffered  from  the  temptation  to  look 
upon  everything  in  human  life  as  artistic  material,  or 
as  means  towards  self-realisation.  He  expresses  his 
great  purpose  in  a  letter  to  Lavater,  "  The  desire  to 
raise  the  pyramid  of  my  existence,  the  base  of  which 
is  laid  already,  as  high  as  possible  in  the  air  absorbs 
every  other  desire,  and  scarcely  ever  quits  me."  ^  It 
was  a  noble  aim,  demanding  self-restraint  and  many 
moral  qualities,  but  it  led  him  to  accommodate  him- 
self not  only  to  the  limitations  of  life,  but  also  to  many 
things  which  could  not  be  justified.  He  never  quite 
lost  self-consciousness,  so  flagrantly  evident  in  Ecker- 
mann's  Conversations  with  Goethe;  and  in  all  his  life 
he  never  knew  the  passion  of  self-forgetful  devotion. 
He  avoided  committing  himself  to  anything  or  to  any- 
body outside  of  himself,  or  to  anything  that  he  thought 
would  hinder  his  own  development.  Some  of  this  cau- 
tion was  necessary  to  one  who  had  determined  never  to 
spend  time  over  what,  he  very  soon  discovered  by  his 
quick  insight,  was  foreign  to  his  own  nature.  In  the 
art  of  life,  as  in  all  arts,  there  must  be  selection  of 
material,  and  no  man  can  safely  wear  his  heart  on  his 
sleeve.  But  it  may  well  be  asserted  that  Goethe  would 
have  been  a  deeper  and  larger  man,  and  would  even 
have  aided  his  great  design  of  total  self-development, 
if  he  had  not  shrunk  from  taking  on  him  more  man- 

*  Lewes,  Life  of  Goethe,  vol.  ii.  ch.  i. 


76  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

fully  the  burden  of  other  lives.  He  might  liave  re- 
tained his  wonderful  intellectual  truthfulness,  his  mag- 
nificent self-mastery,  his  unswerving  fidelity  to  his 
great  purpose,  and  all  the  essential  qualities  of  his 
broad  culture,  even  if  he  had  submitted  himself  to  the 
common  limitation  of  the  ordinary  relationships.  It 
would  have  given  him  a  keener  insight,  and  a  larger 
outlook,  and  a  fuller  all-round  development.  In  any 
case  his  attitude  led  him  into  many  great  errors,  some 
of  which,  like  his  treatment  of  Frederika  and  of 
women  generally,  have  laid  him  open  to  the  charge  of 
callous  selfishness,  and  even  of  moral  poltroonery. 

Something  of  the  same  moral  lack  is  reflected  in 
his  work.  If  we  leave  out  of  account  his  early  and 
noble  drama  Got 2  von  Berlichingen,  he  has  not  created 
a  single  man  with  grandeur  of  moral  character  and 
unselfish  devotion.  There  is  some  truth  in  Mazzini's 
criticism  of  Goethe,  standing  aloof  from  the  great 
causes  that  throbbed  through  the  world  of  his  day, 
when  questions  of  life  and  death  for  millions  were 
agitated  round  him,  when  Germany  re-echoed  to  the 
war-songs  of  Korner,  when  Fichte  and  the  best  spirits 
took  their  share  of  the  burden;  the  criticism  that 
Goethe  looked  on  unmoved  and  drew  aside  from  the 
current,  that  he  saw  the  French  Revolution,  the  rise 
and  fall  of  Napoleon,  the  reaction  of  down-trodden 
nationalities,  and  remained  ever  a  cold  spectator.  To 
the  ardent  Italian  prophet  of  a  new  age  his  attitude 
seemed  inhuman,  and  his  conclusion  is  "  he  had  neither 
learned  to  esteem  men,  to  better  them,  nor  even  to 
suffer  with  them."  ^  The  criticism  is  one-sided,  and 
there  is  something  to  be  said  for  the  artistes  impassive 

^Mazzini,  Essay  on  Byron  and  Goethe, 


f     UNlVt.KOii 

V        ^^ 

DEFECTS  OF  THE  ESTHETIC  IDEAL  77 

calm;  but  it  is  only  a  further  illustration  of  our  pres- 
ent point  of  the  danger  to  which  an  exclusive  scheme 
of  self-culture  leads. 

The  theory,  as  claiming  to  be  a  sufficient  guide  to 
life,  fails  by  taking  a  shallow  conception  of  life  and 
of  the  needs  of  life,  however  wide  be  its  programme 
of  general  culture.  It  shuts  its  eyes  to  the  darker 
side,  to  sin  and  the  moral  twist  in  man.  It  does  not 
take  into  account  all  the  facts,  and  so  fails  to  provide 
an  adequate  motive.  It  has  no  heroic  remedy  for 
the  desperate  disease;  and  many  a  time,  in  view  of 
that  disease,  the  schemes  of  culture  strike  us  as  ludi- 
crous as  the  application  of  rose-water  to  stay  the 
plague.  As  we  look  on  history  and  life,  we  see  the 
pathetic  mixture  of  good  and  evil,  we  see  how  true  it 
is  of  men  that  "  the  angel  has  them  by  the  hand,  the 
serpent  by  the  heart  " ;  and  culture  has  nothing  to  say 
to  the  serpent,  except  to  suggest  a  process  of  gentle 
eviction.  It  neglects  moral  discipline,  which  alone  can 
co-ordinate  all  the  powers  of  a  man's  nature  and  give 
a  centre  of  unity.  It  does  not  present  the  motive 
of  an  overmastering  passion  such  as  religion  gives, 
which  sees  the  need  for  sacrifice,  and  which  makes  sac- 
rifice easy.  It  follows  that  culture  is  blind  to  the 
place  of  suflFering  in  the  perfection  of  man,  and  to  the 
necessity  of  sacrifice  in  the  making  of  a  noble  life.  If 
it  be  replied  that  culture  does  not  claim  such  a  large 
sphere,  and  contents  itself  with  presenting  an  intel- 
lectual and  artistic  ideal,  without  attempting  to  save 
the  whole  man  or  to  save  society,  the  answer  to  that 
is  that  in  that  case  its  failure  is  even  more  disastrous, 
the  more  narrow  it  is  in  its  aims,  the  more  one-sided 
its  conception  of  life  becomes.     By  spending  all  its 


78  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

energies  on  one  side  of  human  nature,  it  becomes  the 
more  untrue  to  its  own  ideal,  which  is  proportional 
development,  complete  symmetry  of  life. 

We  have  already  seen  that  one  of  the  difficulties 
of  our  subject  is  that  culture  changes  its  ground  so 
often,  and  appears  at  one  time  as  a  theory  of  life  con- 
taining the  whole  duty  of  man,  and  at  another  time 
professes  to  limit  itself  to  the  cultivation  of  one  sec- 
tion of  the  field  of  life.  But  even  on  its  chosen  ground 
as  pre-emiently  an  intellectual  scheme  culture  is  lia- 
ble to  stumble.  First  of  all,  it  naturally  enough  over- 
estimates the  particular  corner  which  it  has  claimed 
for  itself.  If  we  give  ourselves  up  exclusively  to  intel- 
lectual pursuits,  we  come  to  lay  more  stress  than  is 
warranted  on  the  paramount  claims  of  mind.  Ruskin, 
describing  his  change  from  his  work  on  art  to  his  work 
on  social  reform,  and  as  a  moral  and  religious  teacher, 
attributed  the  change  to  his  disillusionment  about  the 
value  of  the  long  years  he  gave  to  make  the  public 
understand  the  worth  and  beauty  of  Turner's  paint- 
ing. He  began,  he  tells  us,^  by  believing  that  men  just 
needed  to  know,  just  needed  to  have  the  beauty  pointed 
out  to  them  to  see  and  appreciate;  but  he  found  out 
from  the  public  apathy  that  it  was  not  so,  and  further 
began  to  realise  how  little  effect  would  be  produced, 
even  if  the  people  generally  did  learn  to  value  his 
favourite  artist  at  his  right  worth.  This  is  the  con- 
stant mistake  of  the  gospel  of  culture.  When  Matthew 
Arnold  defines  culture  as  "  pursuit  of  our  total  perfec- 
tion by  means  of  getting  to  know,  on  all  matters  which 

*  Lecture  on  *  The  Mystery  of  Life  and  the  Arts,'  included 
in  Complete  Edition  of  Sesame  and  Lilies. 


DEFECTS  OF  THE  ^ESTHETIC  IDEAL  79 

most  concern  us,  the  best  that  has  been  thought  and 
said  in  the  world,"  he  assumes  that  we  might  reach 
total  perfection  if  we  only  got  to  know.  Life  is  big- 
ger and  more  complex,  than  that  would  make  out.  So 
much  even  of  our  education  is  useless  and  barren,  be- 
cause it  looks  no  further  afield  than  the  training  of  the 
mind.  Mere  cultivated  intelligence  is  no  safe  guide, 
as  could  be  illustrated  from  the  biographies  of  the  most 
eminent  apostles  and  the  most  diligent  disciples  of 
culture.  In  finding  our  way  about  amid  the  mysteries 
of  the  world  and  the  practical  problems  of  life,  merely 
through  getting  to  know  what  others  have  thought  and 
said,  though  it  be  the  choicest  thought  and  the  noblest 
speech,  there  is  no  guarantee  that  our  acquired  inform- 
ation will  avail  much  for  our  particular  difficulties. 
And  even  the  light  that  is  in  us  may  be  darkness. 

The  aesthetic  ideal  itself  in  some  of  its  branches 
admits  that  there  are  other  organs  of  knowledge  than 
intellect;  for  it  makes  much  of  artistic  taste,  and  of 
qualities  that  are  rather  intuition  than  reason.  If  we 
could  lay  bare  all  the  mental  processes,  by  which  we 
come  to  a  decision  or  express  a  preference,  we  would 
be  surprised  how  little  reason  entered  into  it.  The 
way  in  which  beauty  affects  us  is  not  settled  by  crit- 
ical principles,  and  is  not  reached  by  a  knowledge  of 
canons  of  taste  however  correct.  Indeed,  except  in 
pure  demonstrations  we  are  influenced  by  far  more  del- 
icate inherent  qualities  than  reason — by  faith,  by  taste, 
by  personal  sympathy.  Any  fairly  extensive  culture 
will  itself  teach  us  the  necessity  of  guarding  against 
the  particular  mental  bias  encouraged  by  our  special 
studies;  as  for  example  the  scientific  mind  is  inclined 
to  rule  out  of  court  everything  which  is  not  scientific 


8o  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

evidence,  the  philosophic  mind  is  tempted  to  deal  only 
with  abstractions,  with  vague  principles  and  tendencies. 
The  limitations  of  intellect  are  most  distinctly  seen 
in  connection  with  our  relations  to  people.  Truth 
about  the  character  of  other  men  is  impossible  with- 
out s}Tnpathy.  This  is  why  so  much  of  our  literature 
is  only  superficial  cleverness,  a  mere  gift  of  describ- 
ing from  the  outside  with  no  real  understanding.  A 
man  may  set  out  to  write  a  realistic  sketch  of  the  poor 
and  the  quarters  they  live  in,  a  sketch  which  may  be 
quite  true  so  far  as  it  goes.  He  may  give  a  tale  of 
mean  streets,  the  sordid  trappings  of  the  life  he  has 
gone  to  observe,  which  will  be  called  strong  writing 
and  a  transcript  from  life,  if  he  only  writes  in  what  is 
called  a  realistic  way.  With  all  its  appearance  of 
truth  it  may  be  essentially  false,  simply  because  the 
author  has  never  entered  into  the  heart  of  the  people 
he  tries  to  describe.  His  book  may  run  to  mammoth 
editions,  and  may  be  praised  as  a  study  of  a  great 
problem,  and  the  whole  result  be  a  colossal  waste  of 
clean  paper  and  printer's  ink.  We  will  get  more  true 
knowledge  of  the  problem  from  the  humble  city  mis- 
sionary or  the  sister  of  mercy,  whose  hearts  are  full 
of  pity  and  love,  and  who  see  past  the  trappings  and 
the  mean  streets  to  the  pathos  and  the  tragedy,  the 
human  sorrow  and  joy,  the  hopes  and  despairs,  the 
struggles  with  sin  and  the  triumphs  of  grace.  ^  In  our 
ordinary  intercourse  with  men  how  often  we  blunder 
about  character,  or  mistake  motives,  or  misunderstand 
words  and  acts,  because  we  are  not  in  tune  with  one 
another,  have  never  plumbed  the  depths  of  their  mind, 
and  never  been  ushered  into  their  holy  place.  It  is 
only  love  which  can  give  this  insight,  and  can  let  us 


DEFECTS  OF  THE  iESTHETIC  IDEAL  8i 

see  a  little  into  the  poetry  as  well  as  the  penury  of 
life,  the  glory  as  well  as  the  burden  of  the  earth. 
"  Truly  they  who  know,"  says  Maeterlinck,^  "  still  know 
nothing,  if  the  strength  of  love  be  not  theirs;  for  the 
true  sage  is  not  he  who  sees,  but  he  who,  seeing  the 
farthest,  has  the  deepest  love  for  mankind.  He  who 
sees  without  loving  is  only  straining  his  eyes  in  the 
darkness."  "• 

This  leads  us  to  say  that  there  is  here  the  explana- 
tion, why  intellectual  culture  so  often  undervalues 
religion,  because  it  fails  to  take  note  of  the  necessary 
instruments  of  entering  into  spiritual  truth.  It  is  well 
to  realise  the  essential  limitation  of  intellect  and  of 
the  whole  sphere  of  knowledge.  Reason  demands 
clearness  of  ideas,  but  life  is  not  ruled  and  guided  by 
clear  ideas.  No  truth  is  cut  off  in  the  clear  sharp  out- 
lines which  we  for  convenience  sake  attribute  to  it; 
even  in  the  exact  sciences,  as  we  call  them,  which  deal 
with  facts,  we  touch  forces  we  cannot  understand. 
And  in  the  sphere  of  action  and  motives  the  greatest 
of  our  ideas  and  principles  of  action  are  not  clear,  and 
cannot  be  completely  stated  in  words  at  all.  It  is 
good  to  clarify  our  thoughts,  but  many  of  the  princi- 
ples of  our  moral  life  are  necessarily  obscure  in  their 
origin  and  vague  in  their  nature,  and  this  is  just  be- 
cause they  are  so  big.  Conscience,  duty,  generosity,  all 
the  things  that  compose  the  spiritual  riches  of  man, 
have  the  vagueness  of  greatness  about  them. 

Even  when  the  intellectual  effort  is  genuine  and  con- 
sistently carried  out,  we  often  see  in  the  result  a  strange 
and  almost  pathetic  narrowness  of  life.  Mark  Pat- 
tison  say  in  his  Memoirs,  "  I  have  really  no  history 
*  Wisdom  and  Destiny, 


82  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

but  a  mental  history.  .  .  .  All  my  energy  was  directed 
upon  one  end,  to  form  my  own  mind,  to  sound  things 
thoroughly,  to  free  myself  from  the  bondage  of  un- 
reason and  the  traditional  prejudices  which,  when  1 
began  first  to  think,  constituted  the  whole  of  my  intel- 
lectual fabric."  ^  That  he  was  successful  in  his  aim 
every  one  who  knows  his  work  will  admit.  His  Me- 
moirs is  a  record  of  long  and  strenuous  mental  devel- 
opment. He  gained  his  highest  ambition,  and  became 
the  head  of  an  Oxford  College,  and  was  the  possessor 
of  unrivalled  academic  leisure  which  he  used  consist- 
ently for  his  great  end  of  ever  enlarging  and  expand- 
ing his  mental  horizon;  and  yet  in  reading  his  frank 
book  of  memoirs  we  are  touched  by  a  strange  sense  of 
the  narrowness  of  his  life,  by  a  lack  of  the  large  human 
interests.  His  judgments  on  other  men  are  often  so 
peculiarly  intellectual  that  we  feel  instinctively  that 
we  cannot  trust  them.  The  same  sense  of  ultimate 
failure  comes  upon  us  as  we  read  the  lives  of  men  of 
similar  type. 

In  some  even  we  find  their  culture  ending  in  empty 
pride  of  intellect,  forgetting  that  such  capacity  as  they 
have  is  not  of  merit  after  all,  but  theirs  "  through 
heaven's  grace  and  inborn  aptitudes.''  It  is  true  that 
this  pride  is  due  to  an  incomplete  culture,  which  has 
not  been  carried  far  enough  till  self-consciousness  has 
reached  the  point  of  self-forgetfulness.  All  education 
must  begin  in  self-consciousness,  in  acquiring  mastery 
over  the  instruments.  A  man  must  first  of  all  bring 
what  is  in  him  out  into  consciousness,  must  learn  to 
know  himself,  his  powers  and  limitations.  The  artist 
must  know  the  exact  technique  of  his  art,  the  musi- 

*  Memoirs,  p.  i* 


DEFECTS  OF  THE  ^ESTHETIC  IDEAL  83 

cian  the  quality  of  each  note,  just  as  in  all  work  the 
worker  must  know  what  effects  will  be  produced  by 
every  cause  he  sets  in  motion,  and  must  have  acquired 
power  over  his  tools.  So  culture  demands  patience, 
and  study,  and  discipline,  and  all  this  can  only  come 
from  courageous  self-scrutiny.  But  the  perfect  fruits, 
either  in  the  quality  of  work  produced,  or  in  the  qual- 
ity of  character,  can  never  be  reached  until  this  process, 
which  began  in  self-consciousness,  is  lost  in  self-for- 
getfulness.  The  things  which  were  at  first  painfully 
acquired,  become  organised  into  habit,  and  the  meth- 
ods, which  before  had  to  be  carefully  scanned  and  con- 
sciously selected,  are  now  used  by  instinct.  Self-con- 
scious oratory,  for  example,  must  always  miss  the 
mark;  the  audience  can  never  forget  the  speaker,  till 
he  has  forgotten  himself  in  the  great  truth  which  bums 
and  flames  into  sight.  The  culture,  which  remains 
self-conscious,  has  not  attained  to  its  fruition.  Even 
the  conscious  intellectual  superiority,  which  culture 
cannot  but  create,  needs  to  be  swallowed  up  in  some 
larger  sense  of  humility.  In  Matthew  Arnold's  poems, 
with  all  their  wonderful  interpretation  of  the  modern 
mood  of  mind,  and  their  deeply  expressed  sorrow  that 
faith  should  be  lost,  there  is  also,  as  Mr.  R.  H.  Hut- 
ton  pointed  out,^  a  constant  tincture  of  pride  in  his 
confessed  inability  to  believe,  a  self-congratulation  that 
he  is  too  clear-eyed  to  yield  to  the  temptations  of  the 
heart;  and  this  limits  their  scope  and  their  power  of 
appeal  as  poetry. 

As  an  almost  necessary  corollary  from  the  fact  that 
culture  as  an  intellectual  scheme  is  liable  to  overesti- 
mate its  sphere  of  influence,  it  follows  also  that  it  is 
*  Literary  Essays — *  The  Poetry  of  Matthew  Arnold.* 


84  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

always  inclined  to  make  too  much  of  the  mere  means 
it  employs.  For  example,  in  any  full  scheme  of  cul- 
ture books  will  take  a  place,  as  being  the  record  of 
what  the  best  brains  have  thought  and  the  finest  hearts 
have  felt,  but  these  are  only  methods,  means  to  be  used. 
We  know  how  such  a  valuable  instrument  of  mental 
culture,  as  books  undoubtedly  are,  can  be  grossly  over- 
valued. Nothing  needs  more  serious  discrimination, 
even  in  the  interests  of  true  culture,  and  nothing  gets 
less,  as  a  rule.  There  can  be  omnivorous  reading 
without  any  real  grasp  of  thought,  or  balance  of  judg- 
ment, or  self-possession  of  mind ;  and  there  can  be  gen- 
uine culture,  fineness  of  feeling,  depth  of  insight, 
knowledge  of  the  laws  of  life,  without  many  of  the 
ordinary  educational  advantages.  All  the  essentials  of 
culture  will  sometimes  be  found  among  humble  peo- 
ple, with  no  knowledge  of  many  books,  though  with 
supreme  knowledge  possibly  of  one  or  two;  for  it  is 
not  literature  or  art,  as  such,  which  brings  culture,  but 
the  ripening  of  thought  and  of  nature,  producing  nobil- 
ity and  elevation  of  mind.  A  rich  culture  is  evidenced, 
not  so  much  by  the  ready  absorption  into  the  mind  of 
multifarious  thoughts,  as  by  the  habit  of  thinking. 
The  inclination  to  place  an  undue  estimate  on  books 
is  not  confined  to  readers,  but  is  often  found  in  writers, 
with  detriment  to  their  own  life,  as  in  the  danger  to 
which  Hare  refers  in  Guesses  at  Truth,  "  an  author's 
blood  will  turn  to  ink.  Words  enter  into  him  and  take 
possession  of  him;  and  nothing  can  obtain  admission 
except  through  the  passport  of  words." 

Or  take  another  of  the  supposed  instruments  of  cul- 
ture— travel.  It  assuredly  affords  opportunities  of 
comparison  and  contrast  with  home,  opportunities  for 


DEFECTS  OF  THE  ESTHETIC  IDEAL  85 

enlarging  and  increasing  knowledge  and  ideas;  but 
sometimes  it  only  hardens  prejudice  and  blinds  the 
eyes,  so  that  an  Englishman  can  return  from  the  Grand 
Tour  more  insular  than  before.  There  is  an  old  Latin 
proverb  about  those  who  run  across  the  sea  and  only 
change  their  sky,  not  their  mind,  not  their  real  self. 
The  man  is  not  rare,  whose  knowledge  of  famous 
places  he  has  visited  consists  in  a  knowledge  of 
hotels  and  their  menu.  Emerson  had  some  cause  for 
his  advice  to  his  countrymen  to  try  and  extract  the 
tapeworm  of  Europe  from  their  brain,  though  he  knew 
he  would  be  accused  of  saying  captious  things  about 
travel.  Travel  will  not  fill  an  empty  mind:  here,  too, 
we  see  only  what  the  heart  gives  us  the  power  to  see. 
It  is  a  common  human  failing  to  set  store  on  the  means, 
and  to  forget  the  end.  The  workman,  who  thinks 
more  of  his  tools  than  of  his  work,  will  do  no  work 
worth  doing.  This  tendency  to  over-estimate  the  in- 
struments of  culture,  or  its  external  results,  is  responsi- 
ble for  the  sham  culture,  which  makes  good  taste  the 
standard  of  life,  and  so  contents  itself  with  a  veneer 
of  accomplishments,  a  dilettante  knowledge  of  lit- 
erature and  art,  a  social  polish  of  manner  which  does 
come  from  handling  the  tools  of  culture.  It  is  this 
side,  so  often  presented  to  the  world — the  empty  smat- 
tering of  so-called  attainments,  the  amenities  of  refine- 
ment, serene  elegance  of  life,  suavity  of  manner,  and 
sometimes  an  indifference  to  moral  issues  which  mas- 
querades in  the  garb  of  large-minded  tolerance — which 
makes  the  very  name  of  culture  almost  stink  in  the  nos- 
trils of  every  earnest  man. 

A  still  further  evidence  of  the  narrowness  of  such 
culture  lies   in  its  exclusiveness.      It  is,   confessedly 


86  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

according  to  its  own  high-priests,  at  present  the  prop- 
erty of  a  small  and  select  coterie,  and  instead  of  mis- 
sionary zeal  to  enlighten  others  it  often  breeds  a  more 
fastidious  exclusiveness.  It  recalls  the  arrogance  of 
the  early  world,  which  drew  a  line  of  demarcation  be- 
tween Greeks  and  all  other  races,  the  criterion  being  a 
higher  civilisation,  which  classed  every  one  not  a  Greek 
as  a  barbarian.^  When  the  Romans  absorbed  the  civ- 
ilisation of  Greece,  they  adopted  the  same  classification, 
and  slumped  all  outside  races  as  beyond  the  pale :  as  in 
Cicero's  remark  *'  not  only  Greece  and  Italy,  but  also 
all  Barbary  "  (sed  etiam  amnis  Barbaria) .  A  similar 
exclusiveness  is  the  curse  of  sestheticism.  It  is  on  a 
par  with  the  religious  exclusiveness  of  the  Pharisees, 
who  looked  down  with  contempt  on  all  outside  their 
own  caste.  We  remember  Matthew  Arnold's  famous 
division  of  the  population  of  England  into  Barbarians 
the  aristocratic  class,  Philistines  the  middle  class,  and 
Populace  the  vast  residuum,  sullen,  soulless,  half-hid- 
den amidst  its  poverty  and  squalor,  the  sterner  part 
of  it  given  over  to  bawling,  hustling,  and  smashing, 
the  lighter  part  given  over  to  beer;  and  in  addition 
to  these  comprehensive  classes  a  few  cultured  individ- 
uals, who  have  sweetness  and  light.^  Out  of  these 
three  hopeless  classes  emerge  an  elect  few,  who  fol- 
low humanity,  who  love  perfection,  and  are  nursed  by 
culture.  We  must  not  blame  him  for  this  frank  classi- 
fication; for  it  is  a  logical  conclusion  from  his  posi- 
tion. Naturally  and  inevitably,  if  the  standard  is  made 
an  aesthetic  one,  the  great  mass  of  men  are  disfran- 
chised.   When  the  emphasis  is  laid  on  the  accomplish- 

*  Ttag  jurf''EA.Xyv  /SdpfSapoi. 
*  Culture  and  Anarchy,  ch.  iii. 


DEFECTS  OF  THE  ESTHETIC  IDEAL  87 

ments  necessarily  confined  to  a  few,  it  is  to  be  expected 
that  these  should  develop  an  exclusiveness  of  spirit. 

Even  the  Freemasonry,  which  similar  studies  pro- 
duce, often  means  a  thinly  disguised  contempt  for  out- 
siders. Emerson  declared  that  one  of  the  benefits  of  a 
college  education  was  to  show  the  boy  how  little  it 
availed,  but  this  negative  value  is  not  always  seized; 
and  Emerson  himself  could  be  quoted  to  show  the 
intellectual  hardness,  if  not  the  exclusiveness,  which 
culture  induces  on  men.  In  the  essay  on  Self-Reli- 
ance,  where  he  preaches  the  creed  that  a  man  should 
insist  on  himself  and  not  imitate,  he  states  what  he  calls 
the  Doctrine  of  Hatred,  to  counteract  the  puling, 
whining  doctrine  of  love.  There  is  a  class  of  persons, 
to  whom  by  all  spiritual  affinity  he  is  bought  and  sold, 
but  "  do  not  tell  me,'*  he  says,  "  as  a  good  man  did  to^ 
day,  of  my  obligation  to  put  all  poor  men  in  good  situa- 
tions. Are  they  my  poor?  I  tell  thee,  thou  foolish  phi- 
lanthropist, that  I  grudge  the  dollar,  the  dime,  the  cent 
I  give  to  such  men  as  do  not  belong  to  me  and  to  whom 
I  do  not  belong."  Emerson  was  personally  saved  from 
all  that  this  seems  to  mean  by  his  temper  of  mind,  his 
idealism,  his  gentleness  of  heart.  He  was  a  generous, 
large-hearted  man,  but  it  can  be  seen  what  consis- 
tency to  such  a  creed  would  be,  when  Emerson  declares 
it  is  with  shame  he  confesses  he  sometimes  succumbs, 
and  gives  the  dollar  to  the  philanthropist.  In  another 
essay  ^  he  says,  "  The  worst  of  charity  is  that  the  lives 
you  are  asked  to  preserve,  are  not  worth  preserving. 
Masses  !  the  calamity  is  the  masses.  I  do  not  wish 
any  mass  at  all."  When  he  speaks  of  the  mass  of  men 
existing  only  to  be  tamed,  drilled,  divided,  and  broken 

*  *  The  Conduct  of  Life ' — Considerations  by  the  Way. 


88  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

up,  and  all  in  order  that  certain  individuals,  select 
specimens  made  possible  by  the  otherwise  useless 
seething  mass,  may  be  formed  out  of  them,  we  see  that 
it  is  with  the  intellect,  and  not  with  the  heart,  that  he 
approaches  the  sore  problem  of  the  world's  misery  and 
sin.  Culture  as  an  intellectual  scheme  can  only  appeal 
to  a  section.  It  is  not  given  to  all  men  to  possess  the 
artistic  temperament,  or  even  the  capacity  to  appreciate 
poetry  and  art  to  any  great  extent ;  and  though  all  men 
might  become  wise  up  to  the  limits  of  their  nature, 
they  could  not  all  become  learned.  The  work  of  the 
world  for  daily  bread  has  to  go  on,  and  if  the  aesthetic 
ideal  be  the  highest,  the  great  bulk  of  mankind  would 
necessarily  be  cut  off  from  all  hope  of  any  realisation 
of  it.  Like  Plato's  mechanics,  who,  he  declared,  had 
no  time  to  be  ill  and  therefore  demanded  short  shrift 
from  their  doctors  when  they  consulted  them  at  all,  the 
mass  of  men  have  no  time  to  be  so  enormously  culti- 
vated. They  have  to  make  their  living,  and  are  beset 
by  physical  needs. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  stop  to  show  how  different 
from  this  the  Christian  ideal  is,  how  it  broke  down 
the  old  barriers,  which  divided  men  according  to  Greek 
culture,  and  substituted  the  word  brothers  for  the  word 
barbarian;  and  how  it  rebukes  to-day  all  exclusive- 
ness.  The  religious  ideal  has  to  do  with  character,  and 
character  is  produced  from  the  ordinary  material  of 
life,  by  duty,  by  service,  by  faith,  by  love,  by  good- 
ness. If  character  be  the  ultimate  test,  mere  refine- 
ment of  intellect  is  nothing  except  an  added  and  valu- 
able instrument,  which  a  man  is  called  on  to  use  to 
ennoble  life.  Like  every  gift,  it  carries  its  own  tempta- 
tion to  abuse  it;  and  probably  strength  of  character, 


DEFECTS  OF  THE  .ESTHETIC  IDEAL  89 

and  true  wisdom,  will  be  found  among  the  unlettered, 
among  the  handicraftsmen,  as  often  as  among  the  most 
highly  educated;  for  the  deepest  culture  of  life  is 
achieved  by  the  ordinary  labour,  by  the  common  tasks, 
by  the  daily  work  of  the  world.  This  practical  educa- 
tion is  often  overlooked  by  those  who  lay  such  stress 
on  books.  It  is  not  through  abstract  thought,  but 
through  action,  through  practical  life,  that  even  the 
deepest  truth  is  discovered.  There  is  no  education  like 
that  which  comes  from  genuine  work,  done  in  a  work- 
manlike manner  and  in  a  sincere  spirit.  Goethe  points 
the  distinction  in  his  well-known  lines — 

Es  bildet  ein  Talent  sich  in  der  Stille, 

Sich  ein  Charakter  in  dem  Strom  der  Welt.* 

Everything  in  the  long-run  must  be  known  by  its  fruits, 
and  must  be  tested  by  how  it  fits  in  with,  and  affects, 
the  vital  relations  in  which  men  stand.  The  true  life 
of  a  man  or  a  nation  does  not  consist  in  a  taste  for 
the  fine  arts,  or  the  spinning  of  either  words  or  theo- 
ries, but  in  the  moral  qualities  which  go  to  the  forma- 
tion of  character.  Alfred  de  Musset's  saying  that  it 
takes  a  great  deal  of  life  to  make  a  little  art  is  a  true 
one:  great  art  is  the  distillation  of  life,  compressing 
in  precious  essence  all  that  is  implied  in  the  larger 
material;  but  that  is  because,  after  all,  Hfe  is  larger 
than  art,  and  life  has  so  many  interests  to  conserve,  and 
chiefly  its  own  continuance.  The  Renaissance,  with 
all  its  wonderful  resurrection  of  art,  did  not  save  Italy 
from  decadence.  All  art  must  be  grounded  on  the  solid 
root-virtues  of  the  people's  character. 

* "  Talent  is  formed  in  solitude ;    character  in  the  stream  of 
the  world." 


I 


90  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

We  are  thus  led,  approaching  the  question  from 
another  point,  to  see  the  danger  to  which  culture 
exposes  itself  by  any  short-sighted  exclusiveness.  Just 
because  it  is  tempted  to  stand  off  in  haughty  isolation 
from  the  vital  interests  and  movements  that  make  his- 
tory, it  sometimes  seems  anti-social  in  its  tendency, 
with  a  disguised  selfishness  as  its  sole  motive.  That 
way  is  death  to  itself,  and  wrong  to  the  world.  It 
becomes  enfeebled  in  its  petty  cliques  and  castes,  with- 
out a  breath  from  the  real  world  of  men  and  action  to 
vitalise  it.  If  divorced  from  the  movements  and  broad 
life  of  its  time,  it  loses  all  power  of  creative  work,  con- 
cerning itself  with  peddling  criticisms  and  empty  eru- 
dition, and  the  result  on  men  of  culture  is  disastrous, 
leading  to  poverty  of  soul  in  the  long-run.  So  strong 
is  this  temptation  that  John  Morley,  himself  a  distin- 
guished man  of  letters,  writing  of  a  man  of  letters,  sug- 
gests that  the  only  possible  safeguard  is  for  such  to 
seek  to  do  some  social  work.  "  Active  interest  in  pub- 
lic affairs  is  the  only  sure  safeguard  against  this  in- 
human egotism,  otherwise  so  nearly  inevitable,  and  in 
any  wise  so  revolting,  of  men  of  letters  and  men  of 
science."  ^  After  all,  it  is  a  narrow  sort  of  culture 
which  shuts  itself  off  from  life,  and  it  could  be  easily 
shown  that  such  will  destroy  itself,  and  must  ulti- 
mately make  the  very  aesthetic  ideal  itself  impossible. 
All  true  development  must  be  social,  and  must  affect 
the  whole  of  society,  as  nothing  else  can  be  permanent. 
This  is  necessary  for  the  sake  of  the  individual,  quite 
apart  from  any  higher  ideal  of  service  of  others.  The 
culture  of  the  ancient  world  lacked  durability,  just 
because  it  did  not  extend  down  far  enough,  and  because 

'Morley,  Voltaire. 


DEFECTS  OF  THE  iESTHETIC  IDEAL    91 

it  thus  made  the  social  state  top-heavy  by  being  exclu- 
sively lavished  on  a  few.  The  palace  is  not  safe,  when 
it  is  surrounded  by  nothing  but  hovels.  Culture  is  not 
safe,  when  it  sits  aloof  in  scorn  of  the  hustling,  bawling 
populace.  If  it  has  any  sweetness  and  light,  the  only 
way,  even  as  a  practical  policy,  to  secure  them  ulti- 
mately for  the  cultured  class,  is  to  diffuse  them  right 
through  the  social  organism.  It  is  because  society  is 
an  organism,  and  the  head  suffers  with  the  hand,  and 
the  foot  suffers  with  the  eye,  that  no  scheme  which 
concerns  itself  solely  with  the  individual,  can  be  a  final 
one. 

The  conclusion  we  arrive  at,  from  all  that  has  been 
advanced  above,  is  that,  while  self-culture  is  a  legit- 
imate and  necessary  aim,  it  is  not  a  complete  end  for 
human  life.  It  is  only  one  side,  though  a  very  import- 
ant one,  and  needs  to  be  supplemented  and  raised  to  a 
higher  point,  and  used  as  a  means  for  a  larger  end 
than  itself.  Only  this  can  save  it  from  the  inevitable 
degradation  that  must  befall  it,  if  it  remain  on  the 
lower  level  as  an  ideal  for  self.  Not  even  its  achieve- 
ments and  conquests,  not  even  creative  genius  in  art, 
and  brilliant  discoveries  in  science,  can  suffice  for  life, 
if  there  be  not  an  inspiring  force  grander  than  the 
desire  to  reach  self-development. 


IV 

CULTURE  AS  RELIGION 

RELIGION  is  a  natural  outgrowth  in  man. 
When  man  began  to  think  and  wonder  and 
feel,  he  began  to  have  a  religion.  It  is  a 
universal  fact  of  history,  because  it  is  a  fact 
of  human  nature.  Wherever  there  is  man,  there  is  re- 
ligion. The  dawn  of  social  life  among  men  is  the 
dawn  of  religion.  It  has  been  asserted  by  some,  that 
they  have  not  been  able  to  recognise  any  sort  of  re- 
ligion in  certain  savage  tribes,  very  low  down  in  the 
scale  of  civilisation,  though  the  evidence  for  this  asser- 
tion is  by  no  means  conclusive;  but  even  if  it  should 
prove  to  be  correct,  it  will  mean  that  only  the  most 
degraded  and  lowest  savages,  those  least  like  men,  are 
destitute  of  religion ;  so  that  want  of  religion  is  a  sign 
of  lack  of  civilisation.  No  theory  of  the  universe  can 
hope  to  live  unless  it  satisfies,  or  satisfactorily  disposes 
of,  the  facts  of  human  nature  on  which  religion  is 
based.  Of  course  some  materialists  get  rid  of  the  sub- 
ject altogether  by  flatly  denying  that  there  is  a  place 
for  religion,  and  it  must  be  admitted  that  in  their 
scheme  of  things  there  is  not  much  room  for  anything 
which  can  with  decency  be  called  religion.  But  in  any 
case  we  have  the  fact  of  religion  as  an  existing  reality, 
and  as  far  as  history  goes  back,  a  universal  reality. 
That  man  is  incurably  religious  is  as  much  a  scientific 
fact  as  any  fact  can  be,  proven  from  observation  and 

92 


CULTURE  AS  RELIGION  93 

history.  The  mere  blunt  denial  of  the  spiritual  in  man 
is  not  sufficient,  even  though  the  denial  be  accom- 
panied by  a  sentimental  regret  that  man's  life  should 
be  so  grievously  curtailed,  like  Professor  Clifford's 
sad  confession  of  a  godless  creed,  "  We  have  seen  the 
spring  sun  shine  out  of  an  empty  heaven  to  light  a  soul- 
less earth;  we  have  felt  with  utter  loneliness  that  the 
Great  Companion  is  dead."  That  dreary  view,  how- 
ever, cannot  be  the  permanent  one,  even  with  those 
who  refuse  the  consolations  of  religion,  and  so  we  find 
even  materialism  seeking  to  find  a  substitute  for 
religion. 

The  need  for  some  sort  of  religion  for  any  theory, 
which  claims  to  cover  all  the  ground,  arises  also  from 
the  difficulty  of  getting  men  to  rest  in  negations  for 
very  long.  There  must  be  something  to  gain  prose- 
lytes, and  to  have  a  centre  for  a  system,  which  can 
supply  the  want  created  by  the  loss  of  the  old.  After 
negation  has  done  its  work  of  dissolving  the  old  faith, 
what  then?  All  power  of  infidelity  lies  in  its  criti- 
cism of  faith,  not  in  its  preaching  of  unfaith.  Sec- 
ular lecturers  may  catch  fire,  as  they  denounce  what 
they  conceive  to  be  the  falsehood  and  hypocrisy  in  pres- 
ent-day religion,  but  atheism  as  a  creed,  or  want  of 
creed,  cannot  captivate  the  imagination,  and  infuse 
thought  with  emotion,  and  inspire  missionaries.  Only 
a  religion  can  uproot  a  religion.  It  has  been  so  all 
through  history,  and  human  nature  has  not  changed, 
nor  human  needs  been  abolished.  Only  the  passion  of 
a  new  faith  can  displace  an  old  one.  From  history 
also  we  see  that  religion  has  exercised  hitherto  the 
supreme  influences  on  man;  and  that  the  nobler  and 
purer  the  religion  of  a  people  is,  the  grander  are  their 


94  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

works  and  life.  So  much  is  this  the  reading  of  the 
facts,  that  all  who  are  concerned  about  the  future  of 
the  race  admit  that  the  greatest  of  all  questions  is  the 
religious  one;  for  they  see  that  if  our  civilization  is 
to  live  at  all  it  can  only  be  by  religion,  since  there  is 
nothing  else  that  can  save  it  from  the  dangers  that 
menace  it.  So  strong  is  this  assurance  that  we  find 
men,  who  have  given  up  the  Christian  faith,  and  even 
the  faith  in  a  personal  God,  seeking  for  some  religion 
to  take  the  place  of  the  one  which  they  have  dispos- 
sessed ;  Comte  and  the  positivists  substituting  the  wor- 
ship of  humanity  for  the  worship  of  God;  some  cul- 
turists  making  culture  itself  religion ;  even  some  mate- 
rialists offering,  as  a  fit  object  of  worship,  the  uni- 
verse, the  grand  sum  total  of  the  order  of  things. 

It  is  with  the  claim  of  culture  that  we  have  to  do 
at  present,  though  it  is  difficult  to  get  the  claim  put 
into  plain  English,  as  sometimes  it  is  represented  as 
chiefly  a  scientific  conception  of  the  grandeur  of  law, 
and  sometimes  as  a  literary  and  artistic  reverence,  and 
again  it  is  a  glorified  self-worship,  slipping  indeed 
sometimes  into  a  sort  of  vague  spiritualism — the  one 
unvarying  element  being  that  they  are  all  attempts  to 
have  a  religion  without  God.  The  ablest  of  these 
attempts  on  behalf  of  culture  is  perhaps  Professor  See- 
ley's  in  his  Natural  Religion,  and  it  is  the  most  inter- 
esting as  coming  from  the  author  of  Ecce  Homo.  His 
thesis  is  that  for  modern  conditions  religion  to  the  indi- 
vidual may  be  identified  with  culture,  and  in  its  pub- 
lic aspect,  as  a  sort  of  national  or  international  religion, 
it  may  be  identified  with  civilisation.  He  begins  with 
the  definition  that  religion  in  its  root  idea  is  admiration. 
Religion  in  the   Christian  sense  is  to  him  too  lim- 


CULTURE  AS  RELIGION  95 

ited,  too  exclusively  concerned  with  the  contemplation 
of  the  good,  given  up  to  the  exercises  of  the  benevolent 
affections  and  the  moral  virtues,  all  well  enough  in 
their  way,  but  making  up  only  a  fragment  of  life.  He 
would  not  displace  that  altogether,  but  would  merely 
supplement  it  with  two  other  elements,  which  demand 
the  same  worshipful  contemplation,  the  beautiful  and 
the  true,  in  all  making  a  threefold  religious  cord  strong 
enough  for  modern  life  to  hang  by,  though  he  thinks 
they  need  not  be  combined  in  every  individual.  Since 
the  artist  admires  beauty  and  may  be  said  to  worship 
it,  and  the  naturalist  admires  truth  and  is  bowed  in 
awe  before  the  mystery  and  order  of  physical  law,  these 
are  to  be  elevated  into  the  place  of  conscious  and  ac- 
cepted religion,  on  a  level  with  the  other  worship  of 
goodness. 

The  religion  which  is  to  inspire  our  civilisation  is 
that  threefold  devotion:  first,  of  science,  which  is  con- 
cerned with  eternal  law,  and  which  has  many  intel- 
lectual virtues,  such  as  definiteness  of  conception,  ac- 
curacy of  observation,  conscientiousness,  and  patience ; 
then  the  spirit  of  humanity,  with  all  the  practical  vir- 
tues of  honesty,  help  to  the  weak,  respect  for  women, 
and  love  of  liberty,  which  is  the  fragment  saved  from 
the  wreck  of  Christianity;  and  lastly,  the  enjoyment  / 
of  nature,  a  legacy  from  Greece,  and  preserved  to  the  • 
world  by  artists  and  poets,  a  fragment  saved  from  the 
wreck  of  Paganism.  We  are  not  to  expect  these  three 
strands  united  in  one  character — indeed  Professor  See- 
ley  is  led  to  make  this  distinction  in  modern  religion 
from  the  common  experience  of  finding  only  one  of 
them  in  different  men.  He  finds  the  artist  cherishing 
a  secret  grudge  against  morality,  and  believing  that 


96  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

our  morality  prevents  us  from  rivalling  the  arts  of 
Greece,  and  convinced  that  on  his  deathbed  he  would 
rather  be  able  to  reflect  that  he  had  painted  a  really 
good  picture,  or  written  a  really  good  poem,  than  that 
he  had  done  his  duty  under  great  temptations  and  at 
great  sacrifices.  He  finds  the  scientific  investigator 
living  a  life  to  which  the  platitudes  current  about  vir- 
tue have  no  application;  with  the  gradual  disuse  of  all 
habits  except  the  habit  of  thought  and  study,  instead 
of  the  gradual  formation  of  virtuous  habits  which  mor- 
alists demand;  with  perpetual  self-absorption,  without 
what  is  commonly  called  selfishness;  total  disregard 
of  other  people,  along  with  unceasing  labour  for  the 
human  race ;  a  life  free  from  gross  evil,  yet  without  any 
love  or  heavenly  communion  in  it.  He  too  would 
rather  have  advanced  our  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  the 
universe  if  only  by  a  step,  than  have  lived  the  most 
virtuous  life,  and  died  the  most  self-sacrificing  death. 
The  two  ideals  of  art  and  science  are  simply  out  of  rela- 
tion to  what  we  call  morality,  virtue  and  vice,  right 
and  wrong;  yet  these  two  ideals,  Seeley  thinks,  may 
truly  be  called  religious,  because  both  produce  elevated 
feelings — feelings  that  lift  a  man  above  himself,  admi- 
ration become  habitual,  and  raised  into  a  principle  of 
life.  Instead  of  the  religion  of  right  to  which  the 
moralist  subscribes,  one  has  the  religion  of  beauty,  the 
other  the  religion  of  law  and  truth ;  and  both  join  with 
the  moralist  in  denouncing  the  mere  worldling,  the  man 
who  does  not  know  any  exalted  feeling  of  admiration, 
who  is  devoted  to  nothing,  without  soul  for  beauty  or 
for  truth,  and  therefore  without  religion. 

To  be  quite  fair  to  Seeley's  position  we  must  remem- 
ber that  it  is  offered  in  the  interests  of  what  he  thinks 


CULTURE  AS  RELIGION  97 

the  higher  life,  as  opposed  to  the  dominant  secular  tend- 
encies of  our  age,  and  because  he  feels  that  there  has 
never  been  a  time  when  the  necessity  of  religion,  in 
the  broad  sense  of  the  word,  has  been  so  clear.  He  is 
concerned  that  so  many  artists  should  paint  falsely, 
and  so  many  literary  men  write  hastily,  for  money ;  and 
that  men  born  to  be  philosophers,  or  scientific  discov- 
erers, or  moral  reformers,  should  "  end  ignominiously 
in  large  practice  at  the  bar."  He  would  recall  men  in 
all  these  spheres  to  the  religious  sacredness  of  their 
work.  He  looks  to  an  ideal  community,  where  the  cares 
of  livelihood  would  not  absorb  the  mind,  taming  all 
impulse,  and  depressing  the  spirit  with  a  base  anxiety ; 
a  community  which  will  learn  to  reason  with  scientific 
rigour,  and  at  the  same  time  hope  with  Christian 
enthusiasm,  and  also  enjoy  with  Pagan  freshness.  The 
art  and  science,  to  which  he  looks  as  opponents  of 
secularity,  are  not  of  the  world,  though  they  may  be 
corrupted  by  the  world.  The  feelings  they  arouse 
have  the  nature  of  religion,  different  from  the  religion 
which  has  hitherto  been  associated  chiefly  with  moral- 
ity, manifesting  itself  in  other  ways  than  ordinary  mor- 
als, but  truly  religious  and  essential  to  the  higher  life 
of  man.  It  is  really  religion  revived  under  the  new 
name  of  culture,  leading  to  a  life  inspired  by  what  can 
be  called  religious  admiration  and  devotion.  It  is  a 
larger  conception  of  religion  which  he  seeks  to 
expound,  and  the  three  forms  in  which  it  manifests  it- 
self constitute  culture,  summed  up  by  Goethe  as  life  in 
the  Whole,  in  the  Good,  in  the  Beautiful,  which  Seeley 
identifies  with  science,  morality,  and  art. 

We  must  also  grant,  and  gladly  grant,  a  truth  in 
Professor's  Seeley's  argument,  that  the  pursuit  of  the 


9S  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

beautiful  in  art,  and  of  the  true  in  science,  are  right 
ends  to  be  followed  by  men  who  are  endowed  in  these 
branches,  and  are  well  worthy  to  be  classed  as  aspects 
of  religion;  and  we  gladly  admit  that  men  may  be 
brought  into  a  religious  mind  through  these  spheres — 
nay,  further,  may  be  brought  to  God,  through  the 
works  of  beauty  and  of  order,  which  do  reveal  Him- 
self. But  there  is  some  looseness  of  language  in  the 
definition.  There  is  in  all  religion  an  element  of  wor- 
ship, of  adoration,  but  there  is  a  distinction  between 
that  and  admiration.  It  is  true  that  irreligion  may 
fairly  be  defined  as  life  without  worship,  but  it  is  to 
empty  the  word  of  its  meaning  to  make  worship  merely 
the  possession  of  some  object  of  habitual  contempla- 
tion, which  makes  life  rich  to  a  man,  and  of  which 
he  thinks  and  speaks  with  ardour.  It  is  not  necessa- 
rily religious  to  admire  a  picture,  however  beautiful,  or 
a  landscape,  or  even  the  planets  in  their  orbits,  which 
illustrate  the  wonder  and  order  of  law.  It  is  only  by 
a  poetic  licence  that  we  can  speak  of  adoring  these 
things,  because  we  happen  to  admire  them  very  much ; 
but  we  can  be  said — and  this  is  the  religious  aspect  of 
both  art  and  science — ^through  the  admiration  of  these 
works  of  God's  hands,  to  adore  Him,  whose  admira- 
ble qualities  are  revealed  by  them.  Admiration  stops 
at  the  object  admired,  and  is  limited  to  the  finite; 
adoration  goes  past  the  object  to  the  infinite.  So  while 
admiration  may  lead  to  adoration,  the  distinction  be- 
tween the  two  attitudes  is  not  one  merely  of  degree. 
Admiration  could  never  inspire  such  an  attitude  of  self- 
prostration  and  self-surrender,  as  is  implied  in  an  act 
of  prayer.  It  is  a  confusion  of  thought  to  make 
admiration,  however  sincere  and  ardent,  equivalent  to 


CULTURE  AS  RELIGION  99 

adoration.  Admiration  carries  with  it  a  certain  as- 
sumption of  equality  and  almost  self-esteem,  as  when 
we  admire  a  picture,  we  put  ourselves  in  the  position 
of  a  critic,  and  compare  it  with  our  own  ideal;  while 
worship  is  the  prostration  of  the  soul  in  self-forgetful 
adoration  before  something,  which  transcends  all 
human  criticism  and  all  standards  of  comparison.  We 
feel  the  full  force  of  the  distinction  if  we  transpose  the 
terms,  and  speak  of  "  admiring  "  God,  and  "  adoring  " 
a  man.  To  use  the  two  words  as  synonymous,  or  as  if 
they  were  on  the  same  level,  is  to  confuse  the  plain 
meaning  of  words. 

Further,  in  the  three  forms  of  religion  which  are 
supposed  to  constitute  culture,  we  might  object  that 
the  Christian  faith  is  set  down  in  impossibly  narrow 
terms,  making  it  mean  what  it  has  never  meant  in 
all  its  history  to  any  soul  that  has  accepted  it.  It  is 
stated  as  if  it  implied  opposition  to  the  other  spheres 
of  beauty  and  truth,  as  if  an  artist  or  a  scientist  could 
not  also  at  the  same  time  be  a  Christian,  which  is 
absurd,  seeing  that  the  greatest  of  both  spheres  have 
been,  and  are,  sincere  believers,  in  spite  of  the  blatant 
screaming  of  a  noisy  few.  The  Christian  religion  is 
more  than  admiration  of  the  good  in  the  sense  of  the 
moral.  It  is  inclusive  in  its  scope.  Some  apostles  of 
culture  speak  with  great  condescension,  as  if  they  tol- 
erated religion  as  a  graceful  addition  to  life,  a  possi- 
ble ornament  and  charm  to  a  man,  an  extra  element 
of  culture,  a  delightful  development  of  the  aesthetic 
side,  when  such  is  possible  without  passion  and  too  fer- 
vent zeal,  which  would  mar  the  sweet  harmony.  They 
would  tolerate  even  a  little  harmless  superstition  that 
would  be  consistent  with  a  graceful  bearing.     Relig- 


100  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

ion  can  never  accept  the  position  of  a  sort  of  super- 
numerary, an  extra  pinch  of  salt  to  give  piquancy  to 
life.  That  is  to  dethrone  religion,  and  to  empty  the 
word  of  all  significance:  it  is  not  what  religion  has 
hitherto  meant  in  all  its  history.  Religion  claims  to  be 
life  itself,  covering  all  the  ground  of  life,  so  much  so 
that  even  the  so-called  culture  must  justify  itself 
according  to  how  it  ministers  to  that  life.  Religion  is 
not  the  narrowing,  the  impoverishment  of  life,  as  if 
either  art,  or  science,  or  any  other  human  activity  were 
outside  its  scope;  it  claims  to  glorify  every  region  it 
touches,  making  the  very  body  a  holy  thing,  conse- 
crating mind,  and  imagination,  and  heart.  Historic- 
ally, Christianity  brought  expansion  of  thought,  and 
feeling,  and  life;  and  it  brings  the  same  expansion 
still,  whenever  a  man  opens  his  eyes  to  the  wonder  and 
his  heart  to  the  love  of  God. 

Going  still  deeper  into  this  proposed  religion  of  cul- 
ture, we  must  condemn  it  as  a  religion  on  the  ground 
that  it  cannot  be  made  a  universal  ideal.  Professor 
Seeley  does  valiantly  strive  to  show  how  it  might  be 
made  an  ideal  for  all,  and  even  how  it  might  be  made 
a  missionary  religion,  with  real  zeal  for  the  enlighten- 
ment of  heathen  races  abroad,  as  well  as  the  benighted 
Philistines  and  Barbarians  at  home.  He  pleads  for 
some  organisation  of  the  new  religion  to  carry  on  the 
vast  work  ready  to  its  hands,  and  almost  calls  for  mis- 
sionary volunteers  to  do  for  it  what  was  done  for 
Christianity  by  St.  Paul,  and  Gregory,  and  Xavier, 
and  Eliot,  and  Livingstone.  What  is  the  message  the 
missionaries  are  supposed  to  take?  It  is  almost  too 
funny  for  a  comedy,  though  it  is  unkind  to  laugh  at 
zeal  of  any  sort.    Let  us  carry  the  true  view  of  the 


G    UNIVER 

CULTURE  AS  RELIGION  riH:-25 

Universe,  the  true  astronomy,  the  true  chemistry,  and 
the  true  physiology  to  polytheists  still  lapped  in  my- 
thological dreams;  let  us  carry  progress  and  free-will 
to  fatalist  nations,  and  to  nations  cramped  by  the 
fetters  of  primitive  custom;  let  us  carry  the  doctrine 
of  rational  liberty  into  the  heart  of  Oriental  despot- 
isms ;  in  doing  all  this — not  indeed  suddenly,  or  fanat- 
ically, nor  yet  pharisaically,  as  if  we  ourselves  had 
nothing  to  learn — we  shall  admit  the  outlying  world 
into  the  great  civilised  community,  into  the  modem 
City  of  God.'  ^  It  is  a  strange  missionary  programme 
to  speak  of  to  men  who  have  known,  by  hearsay  at 
least,  of  the  passion  of  the  missionaries  of  the  cross; 
and  we  may  well  conclude  that  it  will  not  be  done 
either  suddenly  or  fanatically.  Seeley's  missionary 
enthusiasm  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  like  much  else  of 
our  modern  sentiment,  part  of  the  unconscious  influ- 
ence of  Christianity.  For  the  ideal  of  culture  is  from 
the  nature  of  the  case  an  impossible  one  for  all,  being 
intellectual  and  aesthetic,  and  the  majority  of  men 
would  necessarily  be  excluded  by  their  inhospitable  en- 
vironment from  partaking  in  it. 

So  much  is  this  the  case  that,  as  we  saw  in  a  pre- 
vious chapter,  the  prevailing  temptation  of  the  very 
high  priests  of  the  new  religion,  the  artists  and  scien- 
tists, is  that  of  contempt  for  the  outside  mass  who  can- 
not appreciate  or  understand  their  special  subjects. 
That  contempt  of,  or  impatience  with,  the  unlearned 
has  always  been  the  great  temptation  of  intellect. 
Plato,  who  makes  the  philosopher  the  ideal  man,  and 
speaks  of  him  with  a  religious  enthusiasm  equal  to 
Professor  Seeley's,  had,  however,  a  calmer  judgment 

*  Natural  Religion,  Part  n.  ch.  iv. 


102  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

of  the  facts,  for  he  confesses  that  there  must  always 
be  few  of  them.  "  Every  one  will  admit  that  a  nature 
having  in  perfection  all  the  qualities  which  are  re- 
quired in  a  philosopher,  is  a  rare  plant  which  is  seldom 
seen  among  men."  ^  The  basis  of  the  new  creed  is 
wholly  an  intellectual  one,  and  it  is  farcical  to  speak 
of  it  as  a  possible  religious  ideal.  Celsus,  who  has 
been  aptly  called  the  Voltaire  of  the  second  century, 
in  his  polemic  against  Christianity,  made  this  a  point, 
rightly  enough  from  his  standpoint,  that  a  universal 
religion,  such  as  Christianity  claimed  to  be,  was  im- 
possible. "  If  any  one  supposes  that  it  is  possible  that 
the  peoples  of  Asia,  and  Europe,  and  Africa,  Greeks, 
and  Barbarians,  should  agree  to  follow  one  law,  he 
is  hopelessly  ignorant."  ^  He  was  judging  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  schools,  and,  imagining  Christianity 
to  be  only  another  intellectual  system,  he  put  his  finger 
on  the  weak  spot  of  all  such  systems. 
^Christianity,  however,  begins  from  another  direc- 
tion, begins  with  the  recognition  of  human  worth,  and 
puts  a  new  value  on  human  nature  as  such,  just  because 
it  did  not  make  an  intellectual  standard  for  religion; 
and  for  the  same  reason  it  recognised  no  distinction 
of  race,  or  class,  and  made  its  appeal  to  all,  irrespect- 
ive of  status,  and  condition,  and  place  in  the  scale  of 
culture.  It  took  for  granted  that  in  every  man  there 
was  the  capacity  for  the  divine,  dwarfed  and  distorted 
but  indestructible.  It  appealed  directly  to  the  primary 
instincts,  to  the  innate  moral  element  as  being  capable 
of  growth.  The  present  state  of  the  conscience  and 
the  soul  might  be  rudimental,  but  infinite  possibility 

^  Republic,  vi.  491. 
'  Celsus,  Ap.  Orig.  c.  Gels.  viii.  72. 


CULTURE  AS  RELIGION  103 

lay  there.  Thus  it  stamped  human  nature  with  in- 
herent nobility  and  grandeur.  It  brought  a  man  past 
all  disabilities  of  station,  or  culture,  or  race,  right  into 
the  presence  of  God,  opening  up  to  him  complete  fel- 
lowship, giving  him  all  the  rights  of  a  man,  though 
he  had  been  the  poorest  slave  or  the  most  despised 
outcast.  No  chemistry,  or  astronomy,  or  physiology, 
however  true  as  compared  with  his  own  blind  notions 
of  such  things,  could  have  brought  such  expansion  of 
life,  such  accession  of  human  dignity,  such  redemptive 
power,  as  that  assurance  that  God  cared  for  him  and 
claimed  him  as  a  son.  Any  form  of  culture  turned  into 
a  religion  is  bound  to  become  an  esoteric  creed,  and 
since  it  is  an  intellectual  religion  it  must  receive  the 
fate  of  all  philosophies.  That  can  never  be  religiously 
true,  which  condemns  the  great  mass  of  men  to  a  state 
of  spiritual  serfdom  for  the  benefit  of  the  favoured 
few. 

The  attempt  is  due  to  a  meagre  view  of  human  na- 
ture, which  looks  upon  intellect  as  the  highest  flower 
of  man.  But  the  highest  kind  of  knowledge,  which  is 
peculiarly  religious,  is  not  reached  by  pure  reason,  by 
intellect  carefully  balancing  probabilities  of  evidence, 
as  the  mind  must  do  in  the  chemistry  and  physiology 
of  the  new  missionary  programme.  /The  highest  kind 
of  knowledge  is  the  fruit  of  intuition,  and  imagination, 
and  feeling,  and  mind  combined  in  one  fervid  glow, 
intellect  gleaming  with  inspiration,  though  suffused 
with  emotion.  In  other  words,  it  takes  all  the  faculties 
of  man  together  to  grasp  truth  at  its  highest.  Intel- 
lectualism,  that  is  any  method  which  approaches  the 
problems  of  life  otherwise  than  by  moral  and  spiritual 
means,  can  never  oust  religion  from  its  place.    It  does 


104  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

not  touch  the  centre  of  life.  It  would  seek  to  regener- 
ate man  and  make  him  moral,  or  get  the  same  results 
as  morality,  by  enlightening  him.  Religion  enlightens 
him  by  regenerating  him.  And,  therefore,  the  methods 
of  the  two  are  as  different  as  their  aims. 

Intellectualism  works  by  brain,  religion  by  heart: 
the  one  appeals  to  knowledge,  the  other  to  love. 
Reason  is  a  destructive  and  critical,  not  a  constructive 
power;  but  the  human  relations  are  built  on  feeling, 
not  on  reason  or  knowledge.  We  are  not  bound  to 
each  other  as  a  nation,  as  a  family,  as  a  church,  or  in 
any  association  and  relationship,  by  abstract  principles 
of  thought.  Good  reasons  may  be  found  out  why  we 
should  be  so  bound  together,  but  the  reasons  are  only 
an  afterthought,  an  explanation  of  the  actual  state  of 
affairs.  All  the  permanent  relations  of  life  have  other 
sanctions  besides  reason.  No  association  of  men  can 
be  kept  vital,  and  even  long  kept  together  at  all,  on 
merely  prudential  and  reasonable  grounds.  Men  are 
united  by  ties  of  blood,  and  brotherhood,  and  common 
faith,  and  common  love.  No  church  could  be  kept  to- 
gether for  a  month  on  an  intellectual  basis  merely.  It 
is  bound  by  memory,  and  by  association,  by  a  faith  that 
transcends  reason,  by  sacred  mysteries,  by  love,  and 
service,  and  worship,  independent  of  the  sanctions  of 
logic.  If  then  the  human  relations  are  built  on  feeling, 
religion,  the  fount  and  spring  of  which  is  love,  is  in 
the  very  citadel  of  life. 

The  real  crux  of  the  question  raised  by  the  claims 
of  culture  is  that  man  needs  not  enlightenment  merely, 
but  redemption.  In  the  ultimate  issue  the  question  is 
one  of  education  versus  regeneration.  It  is  naively 
assumed  that  men  will  be  elevated  into  newness  of 


CULTURE  AS  RELIGION  105 

life,  if  only  they  can  be  brought  into  contact  with  what 
has  been  best  said  and  imagined  by  poets  and  writers 
and  artists,  as  one  school  of  culture  insists ;  or  if  they 
can  be  got  to  listen  to  the  clear  teaching  of  the  best 
thinkers  about  the  laws  of  nature,  as  another  school 
puts  it.  The  world  is  not  so  sure  as  it  has  sometimes 
been  that  crime  would  disappear,  if  only  we  had  better 
machinery  of  education;  yet  it  is  the  constant  mistake 
of  humanism  that  intellectual  emancipation  is  enough, 
as  if  enlightenment,  the  teaching  of  art  and  science 
and  the  sum  total  of  what  is  vaguely  called  civilisation, 
were  enough  to  save  the  world.  It  cannot  even  save 
the  individual.  Philosophy  is  a  feeble  antagonist  be- 
fore passion.  Even  when  its  teaching  is  correct,  it 
cannot  give  an  adequate  motive  in  the  presence  of 
temptation,  such  a  motive  as  the  love  of  Christ  and  the 
passion  for  His  purity  has  been  in  countless  lives.  In 
the  period  of  Greek  decadence  we  see  how  weak  the 
most  elaborately  reasoned  philosophy  is  before  even 
much  lower  forms  of  thought.  The  idea  of  God, 
reached  by  the  great  poets  and  thinkers  of  Greece,  was 
infinitely  higher  than  that  of  the  local  superstitions  or 
of  the  foreign  mysticisms,  and  yet  these  latter  com- 
pletely submerged  the  higher  idea.  The  nobler  thought 
only  appealed  to  men  as  an  intellectual  apprehension, 
and  never  sent  its  roots  deep  into  the  conscience  and 
heart.  Any  so-called  religion  of  culture  is  really  a 
philosophy  in  disguise,  taking  as  its  method  education 
of  mind. 

The  deepest  point  at  issue  is  the  question  of  sin, 
which  is  quietly  ignored  in  the  religion  of  culture. 
There  is  no  mention  of  sin.  It  is  overlooked  as  if  no 
such  thing  existed  even  as  a  question,  though  sin  is  a 


io6  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

common  factor  of  all  religious  experience  known  in 
history,  as  the  almost  universality  of  sacrifice  in  some 
form  proves.  It  makes  no  attempt  to  explain  the  con- 
sciousness of  guilt,  in  which  omission  culture  is  not 
alone.  It  is  a  necessity  for  any  theory,  which  attempts 
a  naturalistic  explanation  of  the  world  and  man,  to 
eliminate  the  question  of  sin;  for  to  admit  sin  is  to 
admit  something  outside  the  great  chain  of  cause  and 
effect,  something  which  is  not  strictly  natural.  To 
them,  what  we  call  sin  is  not  the  fruit  of  an  evil  but 
free  will;  it  is  a  natural  appearance,  neither  in  itself 
to  be  praised  or  blamed,  like  acorns  on  an  oak.  We 
are  justified  in  asking  from  any  system  of  thought, 
which  claims  to  unseat  religion  from  its  supremacy, 
first  of  all  an  adequate  treatment  of  the  fact  we  call 
sin.  A  religion  of  culture  without  God  must  either 
deny  the  reality  of  sin  at  all,  or  define  it  as  simply  the 
imperfection  involved  in  finite  being.  This  has  the 
effect  of  destroying  the  moral  view  of  evil,  and  it  only 
explains  a  very  few  of  the  facts  which  the  conscience 
of  man  classes  as  sins.  It  may  cover  faults  of  igno- 
rance and  mistakes  that  could  not  be  avoided,  but  it  has 
nothing  to  say  to  the  real  sins  of  life,  the  fruit  of  evil 
will.  The  long  blacklist  which  St.  Paul  gives  as  the 
works  of  the  flesh  ^  cannot  be  dismissed  as  shortcom- 
ings and  deficiencies.  A  theory,  which  thus  volatilises 
evil  by  calling  it  imperfection,  and  which  thus  empties 
sin  of  any  moral  significance,  cannot  command  our 
adherence.  Its  standards  of  human  perfection  are 
purely  artificial.  At  bottom  there  is  the  tacit  denial  of 
the  spiritual  element  in  man;  for,  of  course,  if  man's 
being  is  limited  to  the  finite,  then  a  life  lived  on  the 

*Gal.  V.  19-21. 


CULTURE  AS  RELIGION  107 

plane  of  nature,  satisfying  sense  and  impulse,  cannot 
know  sin.  It  is  neither  moral  nor  immoral,  but  only 
unmoral. 

We  see  how  wide  of  the  mark  is  the  idea  that 
science  or  art  can  be  made  a  religion  for  the  heart  of 
man ;  for  neither  of  them  touch  the  deepest  things,  and 
neither  of  them  have  anything  to  say  to  sin,  and  thus 
practically,  through  omitting  the  fact  of  sin,  they  mini- 
mise or  omit  the  ethical.  The  religious  view  of  human 
nature  seems  to  collide  with  the  natural  tendency  of 
the  artistic  mind,  which  is  easily  blinded  to  the  ugly 
facts  represented  by  the  term  sin,  the  discord  in  the 
universal  harmony,  and  which  loves  to  dwell  on  the 
beauty  and  grace  of  the  world,  and  the  achievements 
of  the  human  mind.  Similarly,  the  religious  view  of 
human  nature  seems  at  complete  variance  with  the 
natural  tendency  of  the  scientific  mind,  which  seeks  to 
find  everywhere  the  ordered  march  of  evolution  with- 
out any  hiatus  in  the  steps.  The  existence  of  sin,  a 
state  of  revolt  against  the  true  order  of  man's  life,  the 
consequent  need  of  redemption,  all  the  facts  and  forces 
which  make  up  the  Christian  view,  suggest  a  system, 
which  seems  the  obtrusion  of  an  alien  force  into  the 
realm  of  law.  But  this  is  due  to  a  too  exclusive  con- 
sideration of  one  set  of  facts,  looking  to  Nature  as  if 
man  were  not  a  part  of  it,  forgetful  that  the  facts  of 
man's  life  must  also  be  included  among  the  facts  to  be 
explained. 

Let  us  suppose  a  scientific  culture  so  profoundly 
worshipful  that  it  can  be  called  religion,  which  is  the 
contention — science  raised  to  the  religious  pitch,  so  to 
speak.  Such  a  science  must  have  something  to  say 
about  the  nature  within,  as  well  as  the  nature  without. 


io8  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

It  would  accept  the  moral  standards  already  attained 
by  man ;  it  would  admit  that  a  man  must  have  his  pas- 
sions in  curb,  that  he  should  be  of  strong  will  and  sus- 
ceptible conscience,  should  have  a  high  standard  of 
probity  in  his  dealings  with  others,  even  should  love 
others  as  himself.  But  it  kicks  away  the  ladder  by 
which  man  rose  to  this,  and  does  not  reveal  any  means 
of  rising  higher,  to  say  nothing  of  how  he  is  to  main- 
tain his  ground  already  won.  It  is  by  moral  discipline 
that  man  has  come  to  such  virtues,  a  moral  discipline 
wielded  by  the  strong  hand  of  religion.  It  has  to  be 
proved  that  men  can  even  stand  in  the  position  of 
morality,  which  Christian  ethics  enjoins,  if  you  take 
away  the  force  of  the  Christian  motive.  Assuming, 
however,  that  all  these  moral  qualities  could  have  come 
without  the  long  religious  training  of  the  race,  imagine 
a  man  who  may  be  called  a  religious  man  on  this  scien- 
tific basis.  He  will  have  complete  respect  to  the  laws 
of  the  world,  will  admire  the  order  of  things  to  such 
an  extent  that  he  may  be  said  to  worship  the  Power 
behind  all  physical  phenomena ;  and  in  addition  he  will 
possess  some  of  the  highest  qualities  of  human  nature, 
be  sensitive  in  feeling  and  conscience,  choosing  right 
and  loving  right.  If  he  thinks  there  can  be  no  corre- 
spondence between  what  is  best  in  himself  and  the  Su- 
preme Power,  no  real  response  to  his  own  noblest  attri- 
butes, nothing  that  can  be  called  sympathy  between  his 
highest  moral  nature  and  the  non-moral  Power  that 
rules  by  law,  how  can  he  possibly  have  towards  such  a 
scheme  of  things  feelings,  that  by  any  meaning  that 
can  be  put  into  language  can  be  termed  worship,  or  that 
are  worthy  to  be  called  religion?  It  is  playing  with 
words.    A  man's  religion  must  represent  the  highest 


CULTURE  AS  RELIGION  109 

he  knows,  and  in  this  case  the  highest  he  knows  is  in 
himself,  not  in  the  Supreme  Power  he  yet  is  supposed 
to  worship. 

Such  a  view  of  the  universe  puts  the  highest  quali- 
ties of  man  at  a  discount,  and  on  such  a  purely  natural- 
istic basis  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  morality  could  ever 
get  above  the  level  of  prudence,  and  worldly  wisdom, 
and  the  guarded  acceptance  of  some  occult  moral  cause 
and  eflfect,  which  a  wise  man  will  see  does  not  come 
into  collision  with  himself.  Not  so  has  man  hitherto 
come  to  his  noblest;  not  so  have  earth's  greatest  sons 
suffered  sorrow,  and  borne  the  burden  of  being  men. 
They  have  attained  to  the  moral  heights  by  a  conscious- 
ness of  the  divine  presence,  and  by  a  calm  acceptance 
of  the  divine  will,  which  has  had  nothing  of  pruden- 
tial morality  in  it.  They  have  been  enabled  to  endure 
and  make  sacrifice  by  the  thought  that,  though  possibly 
misunderstood  on  earth,  they  are  understood  in  heaven, 
and  have  the  sympathy  and  smile  of  God^  The  sense 
of  God's  presence  has  done  for  them  what  no  worldly 
motive  could  do.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  true  science  does 
not  arrogate  to  itself  this  high  claim  of  being  a  religion 
in  itself,  made  on  its  behalf.  When  it  is  unbelieving, 
it  simply  ignores  religion,  and  goes  on  ploddingly  col- 
lating, and  observing,  and  deducing.  When  it  is  be- 
lieving, it  knows  that  religion  has  higher  sanctions 
than  those  that  can  be  gathered  from  the  knowledge  of 
material  forces.  The  man  of  science  who  is  religious, 
is  religious  in  the  same  way  as  his  humblest  brother, 
who  has  also  seen  the  vision.  It  has  not  been  through 
his  science,  though  that  can  give  him  ampler  thoughts 
and  deeper  reverence.  It  is  because  he  too  has  opened 
his  heart  to  God,  and  submitted  his  will  and  life  to  the 


no  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

Highest.  It  is  because  he  too  has  come  into  relation 
with  the  God  of  his  being,  and  made  submission  of 
heart  and  obedience  of  will. 

A  similar  criticism  can  be  passed  on  art  raised  to 
the  religious  pitch.  That  also  is  to  play  with  words; 
for  the  keenest  enjoyment  of  beauty,  ;and  the  deepest 
feelings  that  can  be  stirred  by  it,  cannot  be  called  re- 
ligious, unless  a  man  gets  past  the  beautiful  things  to 
the  ideal  beauty  behind  them.  The  so-called  religion 
of  science  treats  of  the  universe  apart  from  man,  and 
the  highest  moral  and  spiritual  qualities  in  man.  And 
the  so-called  religion  of  art  treats  of  man  apart  from 
God.  It  is  bound  to  degenerate  into  a  vague  poetry 
of  nature,  an  aesthetic  appreciation  of  beautiful  forms ; 
and  to  attempt  to  make  a  religion  of  it  would  mean  the 
sickening  repetition  of  the  cult  of  the  aesthete,  with 
their  esoteric  doctrines  about  art,  which  result  in  the 
death  of  art  itself.  It  must  be  reasserted  that  the  moral 
basis  of  life  is  necessary,  if  only  to  give  the  foundation 
on  which  anything  permanent  in  art,  or  in  any  other 
region  of  man's  activity,  can  be  securely  built.  When 
intellect  in  Greece  was  at  its  keenest,  and  art  at  its 
best,  and  political  life  was  organised  to  its  highest, 
there  was  in  Greek  society  a  corroding  evil,  which 
sapped  the  foundations,  and  hurled  the  whole  beautiful 
superstructure  to  the  ground.  Matthew  Arnold  is 
nearer  the  truth  than  Professor  Seeley  in  the  emphasis 
he  put  on  righteousness,  on  conduct,  as  three-fourths 
of  life.  Artistic  culture  by  itself,  even  if  dignified  by 
being  called  a  religion,  becomes  at  best  a  dainty  selfish- 
ness, and  at  worst  a  blighting  egotism.  It  puts  the 
emphasis  on  self,  makes  self-improvement  the  only  end, 
which  carries  with  it  the  temptation  of  self-absorption, 


CULTURE  AS  RELIGION  iii 

and  the  darker  temptation  ever  lurking  near  of  pander- 
ing to  every  taste  and  impulse.  Religion  puts  the  em- 
phasis on  God,  reaches  out  towards  the  altogether 
lovely,  and  so  reacts  to  make  a  sweeter  and  deeper 
selfhood.  And,  of  course,  such  a  conception  of  religion 
takes  no  account  of  revelation,  of  God  making  Himself 
known  to  man  in  the  world  of  beauty,  and  of  law,  and 
of  moral  good.  It  imprisons  God,  and  makes  Him 
dumb  and  blind;  and  really  calls  upon  man  to  worship 
an  abstraction. 

^  Further,  in  keeping  with  the  position  which  makes 
God  an  abstraction,  and  which  makes  sin  a  strange 
myth  which  somehow  has  afflicted  men,  it  takes  away 
any  moral  meaning  from  human  life.  The  Christian 
faith  at  least  sees  discipline  in  life,  and  has  glimpses 
of  a  great  end  which  partly  explains  suffering  and  sor- 
row, and  can  even  see  how  man  is  being  made  perfect 
through  suffering.  No  man  has  a  rich,  deep  life  but 
has  known  pain  in  himself,  or  through  others.  The 
mystery  of  evil  in  the  world,  the  mystery  of  sorrow  in 
life,  imply  that  sacrifice  must  be  in  every  noble  soul. 
To  say  then  that  there  is  no  meaning  in  suffering,  but 
blind  strokes  of  fate,  the  cruel  crushing  of  the  wheels 
of  law,  without  purpose,  without  intelligence,  and 
without  pity,  makes  the  heart  revolt.  The  world  is  full 
of  sorrow.  There  is  a  divine  meaning  in  it  to  the  re- 
ligious soul,  and  even  when  he  cannot  explain,  he  can 
believe;  but  what  has  this  new  religion  to  offer  to  the 
children  of  affliction?  In  the  face  of  the  deep  human 
necessities,  to  speak  of  the  religious  consolations  of  a 
cultivated  intelligence  in  art  or  science  is  cruel  mock- 
ery. It  suggests  the  irony  of  Hotspur,  who  describes 
how  a  certain  lord  came  on  the  field  after  the  battle, 


112  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

perfumed  like  a  milliner,  daintily  handling  his  pouncet- 
box  between  finger  and  thumb,  and,  as  the  soldiers 
bore  the  dead  bodies  past,  called  them  unmannerly 
knaves  to  bring  a  slovenly  unhandsome  corpse  betwixt 
the  wind  and  his  nobility. 

He  made  me  mad, 
To  see  him  shine  so  brisk,  and  smell  so  sweet, 
And  talk  so  like  a  waiting-gentlewoman 
Of  guns,  and  drums,  and  wounds,   (God  save  the  mark!) 
And  telling  me,  the  sovereign'st  thing  on  earth 
Was  parmaceti  for  an  inward  bruise/ 

We  can  see  the  desperate  inadequacy  of  this  refined 
religion,  when  we  bring  it  face  to  face  with  the  needs 
of  man,  and  find  that  for  the  sorrow  of  life,  and  the 
mystery  of  death,  and  the  passion  and  the  tears,  it 
offers  ''  parmaceti  for  an  inward  bruise." 

We  must  therefore  respectfully  refuse  to  let  such  an 
emasculated  religion  displace  the  faith  on  all  these 
several  counts — first  that  it  is  not  and  cannot  be  a  uni- 
versal ideal,  but  could  only  be  reserved  for  some 
spiritual  aristocracy ;  that  it  does  not  give  an  adequate 
moral  motive,  nor  offer  a  stable  moral  foundation  for 
life;  and  that  it  does  not  satisfy  the  facts  of  our  na- 
ture, nor  make  provision  for  either  sin  or  sorrow. 
And  all  its  failure  is  due  to  the  fact  that  it  tries  to 
have  a  religion  without  God. 

Religion  is  born  of  need,  an  upward  longing  look, 
a  cry,  an  unsatisfied  desire.  The  heart,  awakened  to 
this  sense  of  need,  can  only  find  peace  in  fellowship 
with  God.  Religion  has  its  roots  here,  and  needs  the 
personal  element.     Only  thus  can  it  be  made  a  uni- 

*  First  Part  of.  King  Henry  iv..  Act  i.,  Sc.  3. 


CULTURE  AS  RELIGION  113 

versal  ideal,  open  to  every  child  of  need ;  and  only  thus 
can  it  give  the  adequate  motive,  and  only  thus  can  it 
satisfy  the  facts  of  our  nature.  A  profounder  philoso- 
phy, therefore,  than  the  specious  abstraction  of  culture 
is  it  to  say  with  Martineau,  "  By  religion  I  understand 
the  belief  and  worship  of  Supreme  Mind  and  Will, 
directing  the  universe  and  holding  moral  relations 
with  human  life."  ^  To  raise  morality  into  religion, 
and  thus  conserve  morality  itself,  we  need  a  personal 
God  in  whom  the  moral  law  is  enshrined.  So  the 
New  Testament  connects  all  the  transforming  power 
of  religion,  not  with  moral  commandments  and  pre- 
cepts, but  with  a  Personality.  It  centralises  every- 
thing in  a  Person,  and  brings  to  bear  the  highest  and 
strongest  motives  possible.  Where  love  is  absent  or 
impossible,  adoring  worship  in  the  highest  sense  is  im- 
possible. So  that,  while  man  has  the  capacity  to  love, 
no  religion  is  worthy  of  him  which  does  not  demand 
from  him  supreme  love;  and  only  love  can  call  forth 
love.  Religion  is  impossible  to  the  man,  whose  highest 
thought  about  the  world  is  that  it  is  ruled  by  blind 
force,  unconscious,  unthinking,  unmeaning  power;  for 
the  worshipper  would  be  higher  than  the  object  of  wor- 
ship, since  he  possesses  consciousness,  and  personality, 
and  will,  and  is  able  to  think,  and  know,  and  love. 

For  the  loving  worm  within  its  clod 
Were  diviner  than  a  loveless  God 
Amid  His  worlds,  I  will  dare  to  say. 

Religion,  if  it  is  to  express  the  highest  capacity  of 

adoration   and   worship,   demands   the   concrete,   and 

cannot  be  put  off  with  an  abstraction;  and  so  needs 

*  J.  Martineau,  A  Study  of  Religion,  i.  15. 


114  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

the  personal  element,  which  indeed  we  find  in  every 
deeply  religious  utterance,  as  that  of  the  Psalmist,  "  O 
Lord,  Thou  art  my  God,"  ^ — Jehovah  the  eternal,  self- 
existent.  Supreme  God,  with  moral  qualities,  merciful, 
just,  loving,  and  above  all  holy;  and  revealing  Him- 
self as  such  to  men. 

We  can  see  also  what  a  powerful  motive  this  brings 
to  man,  lifting  thought,  and  feeling,  and  life  to  high 
levels.  There  can  be  no  such  motive  as  this  personal 
one  of  love ;  and  that  is  the  deathless  grip  which  Jesus 
has  taken  of  the  world.  So  strong  is  it,  that  John  S. 
Mill  confesses,  though  he  weakens  the  motive  by  mak- 
ing it  an  imaginative  one.  "  Nor  even  now  would  it  be 
easy,  even  for  an  unbeliever,  to  find  a  better  translation 
of  the  rule  of  virtue  from  the  abstract  to  the  concrete, 
than  to  endeavour  so  to  live  that  Christ  would  approve 
our  life."  ^  And  when  the  motive  is  no  supposititious 
case,  but  expresses  a  real  state  of  feeling  and  of  fellow- 
ship, what  can  surpass  it  as  a  motive?  The  conscious- 
ness of  a  relation  with  God,  acquiescence  in  the  su- 
preme will,  endued  with  eternal  hope  through  faith  in 
eternal  love,  the  consciousness  of  serving  Him  whose 
service  is  perfect  freedom,  evokes  the  highest  in  man, 
and  gives  an  adequate  support  even  for  the  possible 
calamities  of  mortal  life.  Faith  in  God  is  the  only 
defence  against  affliction,  because  the  only  explanation 
of  it. 

This  heart-hunger  for  God,  which  is  the  deepest 
reading  of  human  history,  is  a  tacit  argument  for  that 
which  will  supply  it.  We  expect  correspondence  be- 
tween an  instinct  and  that  which  will  satisfy  it,  between 

*  Psalm  Ixiii,   i. 
•J.  S.  Mill,  Theism,  p.  255. 


CULTURE  AS  RELIGION  115 

a  faculty  and  its  object,  between  a  need  and  its  fulfil- 
ment. We  were  made  for  God;  it  is  written  in  every 
aspiration,  and  breathed  in  every  prayer ;  we  were  born 
for  the  love  of  God.  No  work,  no  engrossment,  or 
culture  of  natural  powers,  will  satisfy  a  man  who  has 
once  wakened  to  his  heart-need.  Only  a  faith  like  that 
expressed  in  the  great  words  of  St.  Augustine  ^  can 
satisfy :  "  Thou  hast  made  us  for  Thyself,  and  our 
heart  is  restless  till  it  finds  rest  in  Thee." 

We  hear  much  every  now  and  again  of  a  recru- 
descence of  the  Higher  Paganism,  of  Hellenic  revivals, 
of  attempts  to  reintroduce  an  outworn  manner  of  life 
with  its  affected  simplicity,  the  "  healthy  sensuality''  of 
the  Greek,  as  it  has  been  admiringly  called.  It  is  the 
stupidest  of  all  affectations  to  imagine  that  we  can  roll 
back  the  tide  of  the  years,  and  denude  ourselves  of 
what  the  centuries  have  brought.  It  was  impossible 
for  the  ancient  Greeks  to  live  a  life  built  on  the  plane 
of  nature;  but  before  we  could  do  it  we  would  need 
to  empty  ourselves  of  all  our  past  ethical  and  spiritual 
education.  Even  on  their  own  principles  of  pseudo- 
science,  the  religion  we  are  now  oflFered  is  a  foolish 
one.  Even  in  the  name  of  natural  religion  we  can 
never  go  back  to  the  religion  of  nature,  y  The  watch- 
word of  modern  science  is  evolution,  which  implies  the 
progress  from  the  simple  to  the  more  complex;  so  on 
that  principle  religion,  like  all  else,  should  evolve  and 
become  more  articulate;  as  indeed  has  been  the  case.^ 
The  world  has  surely  not  come  thus  far  in  the  matter 
of  religion  to  have  to  turn  back  empty-handed,  hav- 
ing gained  nothing  spiritually  from  the  past.     The  old 

*  Confessions,  I.  i.,  *  Fecisti  nos  ad  Te,  et  inquietum  est  cor 
nostrum  donee  requiescat  in  Te.' 


ii6  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

problem  of  the  whence  and  the  whither  and  the  where- 
fore still  tortures  the  mind  of  man,  and  he  cannot  for 
long  find  peace  in  merely  shutting  his  eyes.  Bacon  ^ 
said  he  would  rather  believe  all  the  fables  of  the  Tal- 
mud or  the  Koran  than  deny  the  being  of  the  Universal 
Mind — that  is,  he  thought  better  religion,  even  with 
the  danger  of  superstition,  than  the  hopeless  darkness 
of  unbelief.  But  the  alternatives  are  not  only  supersti- 
tion or  practical  atheism.  We  are  asked  to  accept  the 
evidences  of  our  own  spiritual  nature  and  its  needs, 
and  to  seek,  and  not  to  be  content  without,  an  ade- 
quate supply  for  the  needs.  Any  form  of  nature- 
worship  is  a  reversion  to  an  outworn  type.  A  frank, 
sprightly  worldliness,  such  as  we  are  told  satisfied  the 
Greek,  can  never  again  satisfy  men,  who  have  seen  the 
vision.  The  glad  natural  joys,  which  could  satiate 
pagan  hearts,  will  ever  be  as  ashes  to  the  taste  of 
those  who  have  known  higher  joys  and  loved  a  higher 
love.  No  contemplation  of  beauty,  no  skill  in  art,  no 
enthusiasm  about  the  progress  of  the  race,  no  accept- 
ance of  scientific  triumphs  in  manipulating  mechanics 
and  harnessing  natural  powers  to  the  use  of  man,  can 
fill  up  the  empty  heart.  We  have  known  better  things, 
believed  larger  things,  dreamed  nobler  dreams,  and 
"  an  eye  shall  haunt  us,  looking  ancient  kindness  on  our 
pain."  The  malady  of  the  ideal  is  ours ;  and  the  mem- 
ory of  lost  love  is  enough  to  turn  everything  to  dust. 

We  have  seen  that  to  take  culture  out  of  its  legiti- 
mate place  and  elevate  it  to  a  religion  is  to  produce  only 
a  sham  religion ;  yet  those  who  have  made  the  attempt 
have  been  moved  by  a  sense  of  the  necessity  of  religion. 
Lange,  the  historian  of  materialism,  speaks  of  the  dan- 

*  Essays,  xvi..  Of  Atheism. 


CULTURE  AS  RELIGION  117 

ger  to  our  modem  civilisation,  because  the  ideal  has 
such  limited  currency  among  us ;  and  all  who  know  the 
tendencies  of  to-day  must  feel  the  truth  of  this.  They 
are  right,  who  think  that  only  religion  can  avert  the 
danger,  but  in  the  days  of  its  power  religion  was 
always  connected  with  the  idea  of  a  personal  God;  so 
that  religion  in  all  languages  means  fellowship  of  some 
sort  with  God;  and  the  worth  of  the  religion  depends 
on  the  quality  and  character  of  the  fellowship.  Relig- 
ion, according  to  itself,  is  the  nexus  between  the  human 
soul  and  the  divine  spirit.  This  is  the  consistent  view 
of  the  Bible,  till  it  culminates  in  the  Christian  faith, 
with  its  pure  spiritual  communion  through  Jesus 
Christ,  who  is  the  perfect  way  of  access  to  the  Father. 
The  religious  man  always  speaks  in  language  of  per- 
sonal relationship  with  God,  and  the  value  of  it  as 
religion  depends  on  the  meaning  which  he  can  put  into 
this  relationship,  and  that  again  is  conditioned  by  the 
character  of  the  God  he  worships. 

According  to  the  nature  of  a  man's  faith  in  God,  so 
is  his  religion.  If  the  conception  of  the  divine  be  low 
and  unworthy,  the  religion  which  is  built  on  that  con- 
ception can  only  be  like  it.  This  is  to  be  expected,  and 
indeed  history  reveals  it  to  be  a  fact.  We  can  easily 
see  how  it  should  work  out  so.  If  a  man  believes  that 
the  world  is  the  sport  of  chance,  there  is  no  room  for 
principle  to  be  solidly  built.  If  he  believes  that  the 
world  is  governed  by  law,  his  life  must  conform  to 
some  fixed  principles,  if  he  is  to  be  true  to  his  faith. 
Then,  everything  will  depend  on  what  his  idea  of  law 
is.  If  it  is  viewed  as  blind  force,  the  relentless  work- 
ing-out of  cause  and  effect,  his  whole  attitude  will  be 
different  to  that  of  the  man  who  looks  upon  the  law 


ii8  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

as  the  beneficent  will  of  a  just  and  gracious  law-giver. 
Our  life  is  bound  to  follow  the  fortunes  of  our  faith. 
Similarly,  we  can  see  how  religion  will  be  different 
with  men  who  each  believe  in  a  personal  God.  It 
will  be  affected  by  the  character  of  the  God.  If  He  is 
to  us  as  an  hard  man  reaping  where  he  has  not  strawed, 
it  is  natural  to  do  as  the  man  in  the  parable,  who  hid 
his  talent  in  the  earth.  Different  qualities  of  fear,  and 
reverence,  and  love,  come  in  and  colour  the  particular 
worship,  according  to  the  light  in  which  God  is  re- 
garded. If  He  be  to  us  the  Father  whom  Jesus 
revealed,  we  must  stand  to  Him  as  children,  and  the 
richer  our  thought  of  the  Heavenly  Father  is,  the 
\^ richer  will  be  the  filial  relationship  in  which  we  stand. 
Everything  depends  on  what  we  make  the  word  God 
connote.  Our  worship,  our  fellowship,  the  faith  by 
which  we  live,  the  terms  of  the  communion,  will  all  be 
determined  by  that. 

Alongside  of  such  a  powerful  motive  as  any  true 
personal  relationship  gives,  we  can  see  the  futility  of 
a  vague  abstraction  like  culture.  "'  Ideas  and  sacri- 
fices," says  Lange,  "  may  still  save  our  civilisation  and 
change  the  path  of  destructive  revolution  into  a  path  of 
beneficent  reforms."  But  the  ideas  and  sacrifices, 
which  can  save  a  people,  have  hitherto  been  only  born 
of  religion;  and  culture  has  no  real  religion  to  offer, 
to  save  the  world  from  the  doom  of  itself.  It  cannot 
be  done  by  a  weak  sestheticism,  which  seeks  salvation 
in  what  is  a  mere  sensuous  enjoyment  in  natural 
beauty.  Life  must  base  itself  on  moral  sanctions, 
must  have  the  idea  of  duty  for  one  thing  embedded 
in  it,  must  be  capable  of  sacrifice  for  noble  ends  and  of 
the  love  which  transcends  self.     This  is  the  conscious 


CULTURE  AS  RELIGION  119 

or  unconscious  faith  of  every  noble  soul.  Huxley 
closes  his  lecture  on  '  Evolution  and  Ethics,"  with  this 
strident  note,  though  it  is  really  a  contradiction  of  his 
position  in  many  respects.  He  declares  that  if  we  may 
permit  ourselves  any  large  hope  of  abatement  of  the 
essential  evil  of  the  world,  "  I  d^em  it  an  essential 
condition  of  the  realisation  of  that  hope  that  we  should 
cast  aside  the  notion  that  the  escape  from  pain  and  sor- 
row is  the  proper  object  of  life."  ^ 

The  moral  sanctions,  the  idea  of  duty,  the  capacity 
for  sacrifice  and  love,  which  are  needed,  are  at  the 
foundation  of  the  religion  of  Christ.  He  touches  the 
highest  and  the  deepest  chords  in  the  nature  of  man. 
He  reveals  God  in  nature,  interpreting  afresh  to  us 
what  psalmists  and  poets  have  seen  in  the  sky,  and 
the  mountains,  and  the  clouds,  and  the  sea,  giving  a 
new -colour  to  the  world,  with  a  light  that  never  was 
on  sea  or  land.  He  reveals  God  in  history,  filling  up 
the  past  with  meaning  and  purpose,  a  meaning  of  love, 
a  purpose  to  redeem.  He  reveals  God  to  us  in  our  life 
to-day,  glorifying  the  meanest  lot,  making  life  to  all 
an  arena  for  discipline  of  character,  and  prepara- 
tion for  larger  life,  and  for  the  display  of  virtues  and 
powers  which  claim  and  receive  the  interest  of  heaven. 
We  live  not  by  bread  alone  but  by  every  word  that 
proceeds  out  of  the  mouth  of  God,  and  He  is  the  Word, 
making  the  world  and  life  intelligible.  To  follow 
Him  is  to  fulfil  our  own  highest  destiny.  To  love 
Him  is  to  love  all  that  is  lovely  and  beautiful  and  true 
and  of  good  report  in  the  world  and  man,  and  if  there 
be  any  virtue  and  any  praise  to  think  of  these  things. 
His  faith  alone  makes  any  adequate  provision  for  that 

*The  Romanes  Lecture,  1893. 


120  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

dread  fact  of  sin  which  has  blighted  life  and  burdened 
the  conscience;  it  sets  a  man  in  the  love  of  God,  and 
when  he  enters  there  he  finds  that  he  is  pardoned,  and 
reconciled,  and  dowered  with  peace.  If  it  is  a  fact 
that  man  is  by  nature  and  instinct  religious,  it  is  no 
less  a  fact  that  the  religion  of  Jesus  is  the  only  religion 
which  is  at  the  bar  of  the  world's  judgment  to-day. 


V 


THE  PERFECT  MAN 

ALTHOUGH  we  cannot  allow  art  or  science  to 
dethrone  religion  from  its  pre-eminent  place, 
yet  the  emphasis  put  upon  these  sides  of  life 
is  useful  in  compelling  religion  to  take  her 
sovereign  power  and  to  reign.  It  has  done  much  to 
bring  religion  into  line  with  her  whole  duty,  which 
is  to  put  a  new  sacredness  on  every  sphere  of  human 
activity.  Culture  at  its  best,  and  religion,  both  alike 
see  that  the  main  purpose  of  life  is  education  in  the 
broadest  sense,  creating  character,  letting  a  man 
become.  Life  from  this  high  standpoint  is  the  history 
of  a  soul  in  its  progress  through  the  world,  meeting 
adventures  and  experiences,  and  through  them  grow- 
ing to  full  maturity.  The  vision  of  unrealised  perfec- 
tion, which  is  the  deepest  thing  in  both  culture  and 
religion,  is  a  tribute  to  the  idealism,  which  seems  imper- 
ishable in  human  nature. 

The  old  and  stubbornly  fought  battle  between  ideal- 
ism and  realism  in  art  and  in  life  is  largely  due  to  con- 
fusion of  meaning  about  what  the  two  words  at  their 
best  stand  for.  De  Quincey  said  he  was  seldom  dis- 
posed to  meet  any  sincere  affirmation  by  a  blank  un- 
modified denial,  since  all  errors  arise  in  some  narrow, 
partial,  or  angular  view  of  truth;  and  this  is  certainly 
the  case  in  the  long  quarrel  between  idealism  and  real- 
ism.    They  often  have  to  state  their  side  in  an  extreme 

121 


122  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

form  to  counterbalance  each  other's  exaggeration. 
When  idealism  is  looked  on  as  the  home  of  all  vagrant 
visionaries,  and  sets  its  seal  on  every  vague  roman- 
ticism, and  every  unintelligible  speculation,  and  every 
vapoury  mysticism — all  with  the  one  essential  qualifi- 
cation of  being  absolutely  unhampered  by  facts  and 
unrelated  to  life — it  is  natural  to  expect  the  protest, 
which  impatiently  pushes  aside  the  nebulous,  the  occult 
in  all  its  forms,  all  traffic  with  mystery,  all  that  sounds 
like  rhapsody  to  the  cold  ear,  all  "  striving  to  attain  by 
shadowing  out  the  unattainable."  The  transcendental 
is  dismissed,  as  either  the  self-delusion  of  the  dreamer, 
or  the  deceit  of  the  charlatan.  Realism  asks  for  defi- 
niteness  of  conception,  and  for  precision  of  statement. 
It  pins  us  down  to  the  crude,  naked  fact.  It  has  no 
sympathy  with  the  inexpressible  and  the  undefinable — 
if  there  are  such  things  they  can  be  let  alone.  Its  great 
virtues  are  intellectual  veracity,  and  lucid,  accurate 
account  of  facts.  Let  us  see  the  thing  as  it  is,  and  if  it 
has  to  be  described  or  painted,  let  it  be  done  as  it  is 
seen.  This  appears  a  very  reasonable  demand,  and 
seems  to  settle  the  question  at  once  on  the  side  of  real- 
ism, but  the  demand  which  looks  so  simple  only  brings 
the  difficulty  into  focus;  for  two  men  do  not  see  the 
same  scene  alike.  Art  is  more  than  transcription,  as 
realism  declares — it  is  interpretation;  but  even  if  it 
were  only  transcription,  no  two  men  could  make  the 
same  transcript.  Fuseli,  painter  and  art  critic,  said  he 
only  wished  he  could  paint  up  to  what  he  saw.  The 
same  thing  will  appeal  differently  to  different  people 
according  to  capacity,  sensibility,  experience.  One 
may  look  on  a  flower  with  the  eye  of  a  florist,  another 
of  a  market-gardener,  another  of  a  botanist,  another 


THE  PERFECT  MAN  123 

of  an  artist.  William  Blake  saw  angels  amid  the  sway- 
ing corn  or  nestling  in  a  tree.  A  scene,  which  is  dull 
and  uninteresting  to  the  listless  eye,  may  be  trans- 
formed by  a  touch  of  creative  and  interpretative  imag- 
ination, as  James  Smetham  says  Gerhard  Dow  threw  a 
glory  over  our  very  pickled  cabbage. 

Besides,  there  is  an  utterance  of  truth  which  asks, 
not  for  admiration  or  approval  or  even  intellectual 
agreement,  but  for  spiritual  assent,  the  thrill  of  soul 
which  recognises  the  truth  and  bends  to  its  dominion. 
All  truth  cannot  be  put  into  the  form  of  mathematical 
propositions,  which  if  they  are  accepted  at  all  must 
be  accepted  in  the  same  way,  as  a  straight  line  must 
be  the  same  practically  to  all  men  however  they  may 
prefer  to  define  it.  The  interpreter  of  nature  or  life 
or  the  soul  of  man  cannot  receive  the  same  immediate 
and  identical  response  and  acceptance  as  a  mathe- 
matical proposition  requires.  He  must  expect  some- 
times to  meet  with  blank  unintelligence,  or  with 
complete  misunderstanding,  because  it  is  a  matter 
of  inward  apprehension,  spiritual  susceptibility  to 
the  impression,  and  sometimes  even  moral  adjust- 
ment to  the  truth.  Strict  realism  would  rule  out  of 
court  everything  which  is  not,  or  could  not  be,  com- 
pletely elaborated  in  outward  expression,  and  would 
discount  all  appeal  to  feeling  and  imagination.  The 
protest  of  realism,  which  comes  at  stated  intervals,  has 
had  a  wholesome  effect  in  all  forms  of  art,  in  insist- 
ing on  the  final  reference  to  reality,  by  forcing  men  to 
relate  imagination  to  life  and  theory  to  fact.  The 
true  idealism  is  not  found  in  the  baseless  visions  of  a 
heated  imagination.  It  may  have  its  head  in  the 
clouds,  but  its  feet  are  on  the  solid  ground.     The  im- 


124  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

agination  must  correspond  to  the  external  form  in 
which  it  is  made  to  manifest  itself.  The  ideal  must 
not  be  cut  off  from  fact,  a  castle  in  the  air  without 
foundation  in  the  homely  earth :  it  is  the  house  of  life, 
beautified  and  adorned  as  a  palace.  The  ideal  is  the 
real  seen  not  merely  as  it  is,  but  as  it  should  be,  as 
it  shall  be.  It  sees  the  parts,  but  knows  that  the  parts 
cannot  be  put  into  their  proper  place  without  some 
idea  also  of  the  whole.  The  ideal  is  the  real  extended, 
carried  out  into  its  true  fruition,  the  real  seen  sub  specie 
ceternitatis  and  not  merely  from  the  point  of  view  of 
the  moment.  It  is  imagination  working  on  the  tem- 
poral and  material,  projecting  it  into  the  future,  and 
connecting  it  with  the  complete  round  of  which  it  is 
but  a  broken  arc.  It  is  but  an  anticipation  of  results ; 
so  that  we  can  say  with  Browning  in  Paracelsus,  that 
"  he  who  tastes  a  crust  of  bread  tastes  all  the  stars  and 
all  the  heaven."  The  prophets  were  idealists  when 
they  insisted  on  the  relation  of  religion  to  history  and 
experience  and  the  whole  outward  life  of  man,  when 
they  saw  it  to  be  the  spring  of  conduct,  the  source  of 
morality,  and  that  thus  in  the  long-run  it  fixes  destiny 
for  men  and  nations. 

Disillusionment  comes  when  the  connection  is 
thought  to  be  too  visionary,  or  at  least  too  distant, 
to  be  considered.  What  we  call  the  real  world  is  so 
present,  so  persistent,  so  palpable  to  the  senses,  that 
the  ideal  may  be  easily  neglected.  The  material  runs 
no  risk  of  being  overlooked ;  but  the  ideal  cannot  com- 
mand the  same  insistent  instruments.  It  works  by 
slower  means ;  it  asks  to  be  spiritually  discerned ;  and 
the  world  dulls  the  faculty  of  seeing  that  which  is 
invisible.     The  ideal,  however,  always  reasserts  itself 


THE  PERFECT  MAN  125 

sooner  or  later;  for  it  is  an  ineradicable  element  in 
human  nature.  Wordsworth  in  his  introduction  to  his 
Ode  on  Immortality  tells  us  how  impossible  it  was  for 
him  in  his  youth  to  disbelieve  in  the  spiritual,  because 
of  the  immediate  sense  he  had  of  the  indomitableness 
of  the  spirit  within  him.  So  exalted  sometimes  was 
his  thought,  that  he  was  often  unable  to  think  of 
external  things  having  an  external  existence  at  all, 
which  is  ever  the  pitfall  of  idealism. 

**  Many  times,"  he  says,  "  while  going  to  school 
have  I  grasped  at  a  wall  or  tree  to  recall  myself  from 
this  abyss  of  idealism  to  the  reality.  At  that  time  I 
was  afraid  of  such  processes.  In  later  periods  of  life  I 
have  deplored,  as  we  have  all  reason  to  do,  a  subjection 
of  an  opposite  character."  The  experience  is  a  com- 
mon one,  though  not  perhaps  in  the  same  form,  or 
with  the  same  vividness,  yet  in  some  kindred  way ;  and 
the  sceptical  mood,  which  follows  in  later  life  and  is 
inclined  to  limit  reality  to  the  material,  is  also  a  com- 
mon one.  To  the  eager  soul  entranced  by  the  splen- 
dour of  a  great  ideal  comes  a  moment  of  disillusion- 
ment, when  a  cold  hand  is  laid  on  his  pulse,  and  a  cur- 
tain seems  drawn  over  his  eyes,  and  sadly  he  can  say — 

Whither  is  fled  the  visionary  gleam? 
Where  is  it  now,  the  glory  and  the  dream? 

We  see  the  tragedy  being  enacted  every  day  in  the 
young  man,  who  began  the  world  with  fresh  enthusi- 
asm, being  subdued  to  the  level  of  his  environment; 
and  worst  of  all,  unlike  Wordsworth  who  deplored 
the  change,  sometimes  he  looks  back  with  shame  or 
even  contempt  to  his  first  high  thoughts.  To  be  sorry 
that  the  vision  faileth,  is  a  nobler  state  than  to  deny 


126  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

that  there  was  a  vision  at  all.  When  the  reality  seems 
so  different  to  the  vision,  and  the  lack-lustre  eye  no 
longer  sees  the  flaming  of  the  advent  feet,  the  tempta- 
tion comes  to  deride  the  past.  This  stage  of  some- 
thing like  disillusionment  seems  almost  inevitable,  and 
should  be  accepted  as  part  of  the  discipline  of  life,  as 
a  call  not  to  renounce  the  ideal  but  to  make  it  truer  and 
larger.  Moral  life,  the  life  of  tempted  beings  capable 
of  falling  and  rising,  of  doubting  and  believing,  in- 
volves this  process,  which  to  so  many  brings  disillusion- 
ment at  least  for  a  time.  It  is  the  great  test  of  life, 
trying  of  what  stuff  it  is  made ;  and  its  full  purpose  is 
achieved  when  a  man  is  sent  back  to  his  life  with  a 
sweeter,  more  patient  humility. 

Idealism,  in  spite  of  the  disasters  that  overtake  it, 
is  indestructible  in  man,  and  the  high  claim  made 
by  many  to-day  on  behalf  of  culture  is  but  an- 
other proof  of  this.  They  are  attesting  to  the 
innate  faith  of  man  in  his  destiny.  The  ideal, 
which  culture  sets  before  itself  of  a  perfect  man 
— a  full-grown,  finished,  complete  man — lies  at  the 
heart  of  the  race.  A  yearning  for  some  unattained 
perfection  is  the  root  of  all  human  progress.  Even  if 
it  be  illusion,  even  if  man  be  haunted  by  the  dream 
of  a  past  that  has  never  been,  tortured  by  the  vision 
of  a  future  that  will  never  be,  it  is  only  a  witness  of 
the  truth  of  the  unquenchable  thirst  of  man  for  the 
infinite.  It  is  as  if  he  knew  that  he  once  dwelt  in 
Eden,  and  can  never  quite  adjust  himself  to  any  other 
imperfect  environment.  Is  it  a  memory,  as  in  the 
thought  of  the  Neo-Platonists  to  which  such  beautiful 
expression  has  been  given  by  Wordsworth  in  his  great 
Ode;  or  is  it  an  anticipation,  a  prophecy  deep  in  the 


THE  PERFECT  MAN 


© 


secret  soul  of  man  of  a  destiny  that  shall  satisfy  his 
every  power,  a  goal  he  shall  yet  reach  which  now  he 
only  dimly  sees?  At  any  rate  it  is  a  fact,  the  fact  on 
which  depends  all  progress  in  art,  and  knowledge,  and 
civilisation.  The  true  artist  paints  with  a  vision  in 
his  soul  of  beauty  hitherto  unrealised;  the  thinker  in- 
vestigates and  studies,  if  by  any  means  he  may  touch 
the  hem  of  the  radiant  garment  of  truth ;  man  in  every 
branch  of  human  activity  is  in  pursuit  of  an  ideal, 
reaching  forward  to  things  that  are  before,  to  appre- 
hend that  by  which  he  is  apprehended,  '^f  we  have 
not  a  City  of  God  which  we  seek,  we  are  at  least 
haunted  by  a  city  of  dream.  But  for  this  divine  dis- 
content, the  race  would  settle  and  sink  towards  a  centre 
of  stagnation  and  death.  It  is  this  discontent,  born 
of  the  sense  of  weakness,  of  failure,  of  imperfection, 
of  sin,  which  is  the  spur  to  all  endeavour  and  the  inspir- 
ing impulse  of  life. 


In  this  broad  earth  of  ours, 

Amid   the   measureless   grossness   and  the   slag. 
Enclosed   and   safe   within  its   central  heart, 
Nestles  the  seed  perfection.^ 


J 


Culture,  which  aims  at  complete  self-realisation  and 
seeks  to  produce  the  finest  results  possible  from  the 
human  material  at  its  disposal,  has  as  its  inciting 
motive  an  ideal,  however  shadowy,  of  the  perfect  man. 
It  looks  beyond  the  conflicting  details  to  an  end,  which 
will  bring  into  harmony  every  section  of  life.  In 
speaking  of  the  possibility  of  perfection,  however,  we 
need  to  avoid  some  of  the  misconceptions  which  have 
gathered  round  the  word.     In  anything  which  admits 

*Walt  Whitman,  Song  of  the  Universal. 


128  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

of  growth,  perfection  can  only  be  a  relative  thing,  in 
its  kind  and  according  to  its  degree,  as  when  we  speak 
of  a  perfect  bud,  a  perfect  flower,  a  perfect  fruit. 
That  is  to  say,  we  can  only  speak  of  these  things  in 
their  particular  stage,  and  in  relation  to  other  speci- 
mens of  their  class.  Further,  even  with  this  it  is  only 
popular  language,  as  botanists  tell  us  there  never  was 
a  perfect  flower,  except  in  the  arbitrary  botanical  sense 
in  which  a  flower  is  defined  as  perfect  in  having  both 
stamens  and  pistils;  but  every  florist  has  in  his  mind 
an  ideal  of  the  perfect  flower,  towards  which  he  is 
working  to  produce.  So  with  man;  the  qualities  that 
are  most  attractive  in  childhood,  and  later  on  in  boy- 
hood, are  not  those  we  look  for  in  manhood.  It  is  no 
imperfection  in  the  child  as  such,  that  he  has  not  the 
powers  and  capacities  of  man.  Each  kind  of  created 
being  is  imperfect  compared  with  those  above  them  in 
the  scale,  and  all  kinds  of  created  being  are  imperfect 
compared  with  the  infinite.  Childhood  is  imperfect  as 
compared  with  the  maturity  of  manhood,  but  it  has  an 
ideal  of  its  own.  Just  because  man  admits  of  growth, 
perfection  in  the  absolute  sense  is  impossible;  still,  as 
with  the  florist,  though  in  none  of  the  stages  do  we  find 
perfection,  yet  the  ideal  is  there  in  the  heart  of  the  race. 
This  question  of  human  perfection  is  further  com- 
plicated by  the  complexities  of  our  powers.  It  is  not 
only  that  there  is  growth,  but  that  growth  is  possible 
in  so  many  different  directions,  physical,  mental, 
moral,  spiritual.  These  different  spheres  need  to  be 
put  into  their  proper  place  and  order.  In  speaking 
of  a  perfect  man,  we  must  decide  what  place  to  give 
each  function.  We  need  true  proportional  develop- 
ment, and  most  of  all  we  need  recognition  of  the  ele- 


THE  PERFECT  MAN  129 

merit  of  growth,  not  only  in  the  individual,  but  also 
in  the  social  organism;  and  growth  implies  change, 
a  readjustment  to  the  new  conditions.  This  great 
thought  of  the  change  inherent  in  growth  applies  to  all 
spheres,  whether  of  knowledge  or  of  social  life. 
Luther  said,  "  I  see  something  which  the  blessed  Au- 
gustine saw  not,  and  those  that  come  after  me  will  see 
that  which  I  see  not," — a  confession  which  was  the 
mark  of  a  great  mind.  Thus  our  ideal  of  the  perfect 
man  will  include  his  relations  to  the  social  and  political 
life  of  his  time,  as  well  as  the  steady  unfolding  of  his 
innate  powers  to  maturity.  This  social  side  of  a  full 
culture  is  very  often  omitted  from  the  aesthetic  ideal, 
and  the  omission  explains  most  of  its  failures. 

It  gets  its  true  place  in  the  Christian  ideal,  as  in  the 
great  passage  ^  where  St.  Paul  is  driving  home  the 
duties,  which  devolve  upon  Christians  as  members  of 
the  Church,  to  use  all  the  variety  of  gifts  and  graces 
for  mutual  edification  in  the  forbearance  and  tactful 
spirit  of  love.  The  purpose  of  the  varied  working,  the 
ideal  end,  is  that  all  together  should  come  unto  a  per- 
fect man.  He  points  to  the  progressive  attainment  of 
an  ideal.  The  master-thought  of  the  passage  is 
growth,  growth  in  faith  and  knowledge  and  love,  not 
only  increase  in  the  amount  of  these,  but  improvement 
in  the  quality  of  them,  the  deepening  and  enrichment 
of  their  meaning  and  scope  to  each.  We  see  this  from 
the  very  word,  which  is  translated  "  perfect."  ^  It 
means  adult,   full-grown,   and   is   distinguished   from 

*  Eph.  iv.  13-16. 

•  reXftoi  (a)  complete,  full,  as  in  Mat.  v.  48.  ededBe  ovv 
vjiisis  TkXetot=comp\ete  (in  love)  not  exclusive,  but  all-em- 
bracing, (b)  adult.  And  used  as  metaphor=f ull-grown  in 
mind  and  understanding. 


130  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

childhood,  the  period  of  immaturity.  It  means  man- 
hood, strength,  ripeness  of  character.  His  argument  is 
that,  as  the  natural  life  should  grow  towards  fulness 
of  stature  and  strength,  so  the  spiritual  life  should 
grow  towards  unity  of  faith  and  knowledge,  and  the 
fulness  of  Christ.  We  see  the  meaning  of  the  word 
brought  out  in  another  passage  where  St.  Paul  writes, 
"  Be  not  children  in  understanding ;  howbeit  in  malice 
be  children,  but  in  understanding  be  men."  ^  The  word 
here  translated  "  men  "  is  the  same  word  which  before 
was  translated  "  perfect."  He  asks  his  readers  to  have 
the  child-nature  by  being  free  from  all  wicked  thought 
and  deed,  and  in  that  respect  to  be  children;  but  in 
intellect  and  judgment  to  be  men,  grown  up,  of  full 
age.  So  in  the  previous  passage  from  Ephesians  the 
state  of  unity  of  faith  and  knowledge  is  looked  on  as 
full  maturity,  manhood  as  opposed  to  the  immature 
period  of  childhood.  St.  Paul  looks  forward  to  this 
maturity  for  the  whole  Church — looks  forward,  that  is, 
to  progressive  Christian  development.  There  are  de- 
grees of  perfection,  stages  of  growth,  from  childhood 
to  the  maturity  of  manhood,  "  till  we  all  come  into  a 
full-grown,  a  perfect  man  .  .  .  that  we  may  be  no 
longer  children  .  .  .  but  may  grow  up  in  all  things 
into  Him  who  is  the  Head,  even  Christ." 

This  magnificent  ideal  of  the  Apostle  makes  us  think 
of  the  Greek  conception,  seen  at  its  best  in  Plato.  His 
ideal  is  the  absolutely  fit  man,  of  developed  physical 
form,  disciplined  in  mind  and  in  character,  perfectly 
poised  in  his  complete  nature,  each  part  adjusted  to  the 
whole.  The  word  balanced  expresses  the  thought  per- 
haps best  of  any  single  word.     Moral  beauty  was  im- 

j  Cor.  xiv.  20, 


THE  PERFECT  MAN  131 

plied  as  well  as  physical,  and  with  a  thinker  like  Plato 
nobility  of  soul  took  the  first  place,  though,  like  the 
Greek  he  was,  beauty  of  all  sorts  attracted  him;  and 
what  he  asked  for  was  a  due  proportion  of  all  the  dif- 
ferent spheres.  The  Greek  did  not  think,  like  the 
Hebrew,  of  holiness  as  such.  The  good  and  the  beau- 
tiful made  up  one  idea  to  him,  barely  separable.  The 
way  the  two  words  good  and  beautiful  were  combined 
into  one  word,^  as  if  they  just  implied  sides  of  the  same 
thing,  shows  this.  There  is  a  deep  truth  in  this  com- 
bination of  the  two  ideas,  but  the  danger  which  lurked 
in  it,  when  looked  at  from  the  side  which  appealed 
naturally  to  the  Greek  temperament,  was  indeed  that 
before  which  the  Greek  race  succumbed.  When  the 
fine  instinct  was  blunted,  mere  pleasure  of  the  senses 
became  the  end ;  and  with  the  decay  of  the  good  came 
the  loss  of  the  beautiful  also. 

Still,  we  must  not  forget  that  Plato's  ideal  was  a 
spiritual  one,  and  not  a  mere  aesthetic  one,  though  the 
stress  was  laid  on  beauty.  In  his  thought  the  lover 
of  beauty  is  led  on  and  up  to  the  region  of  spirit,  if 
he  is  true  to  his  pure  love  of  the  beautiful.  In  words 
which  must  ever  remain  the  finest  expression  of  the 
quest  after  the  beatific  vision  of  perfect  beauty,  Plato 
describes  how  the  Sophron,  the  man  of  sound  mind, 
who  follows  reason,  and  restrains  passion,  and  loves 
the  beautiful,  is  led  to  the  goal, — "  He  who  has  been 
instructed  thus  far  in  the  things  of  love,  and  who  has 
learned  to  see  the  beautiful  in  due  order  and  succes- 
sion, when  he  comes  to  the  end  will  suddenly  perceive 
a  nature  of  wondrous  beauty — a  nature  which  in  the 
first  place  is  everlasting,  not  growing,  or  decaying,  or 


132  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

waxing,  or  waning;  which  is  in  the  next  place  not 
fair  in  one  point  of  view,  and  foul  in  another  .  .  . 
but  Beauty  only,  absolute,  separate,  simple,  and  ever- 
lasting, which,  without  diminution,  or  increase,  or  any 
change,  is  imparted  to  the  ever-growing  and  perish- 
ing beauties  of  other  things.  He  who,  under  the 
influence  of  true  love  rising  upward  from  these  things, 
begins  to  see  that  Beauty,  is  not  far  from  the  end. 
And  the  true  order  of  going  or  being  is  to  use  the  beau- 
ties of  earth  as  steps,  along  which  one  mounts  up- 
wards for  the  sake  of  that  other  Beauty;  going  to  all 
fair  forms,  and  from  fair  forms  to  fair  practices,  and 
from  fair  practices  to  fair  thoughts,  until  from  fair 
thoughts  he  arrives  at  the  notion  of  absolute  beauty. 
.  .  .  What  if  man  had  eyes  to  see  the  true  Beauty, 
the  Divine  beauty  I  mean,  pure,  and  clear,  and  unal- 
loyed, not  clogged  with  the  pollutions  of  mortality  and 
the  colours  and  vanities  of  human  life?"^  Then  he 
goes  on  to  show  how  a  man  holding  communion  with 
that  divine  beauty  brings  forth  and  nourishes  true 
virtue,  and  becomes  the  friend  of  God,  if  mortal  man 
may.  It  is  thus  not  a  mere  aesthetic  ideal,  but  a  spir- 
itual one,  which  Plato  puts  before  us  for  the  perfect 
man;  though  he  states  the  ideal  in  terms  of  beauty, 
rather  than  in  terms  of  holiness.  A  man,  in  his  prog- 
ress towards  this  perfection,  is  to  rise  from  the  visi- 
ble beauty  of  earth  to  the  eternal  beauty  behind  the 
concrete  manifestations,  and  through  his  spiritual  con- 
verse is  to  reach  harmonious  moral  life. 

St.  Paul,  in  his  great  statement  of  the  Christian  ideal 
to  which  we  have  referred,  suggests  the  same  thought 
of   growth   towards   a   completeness   and   balance  of 

*  Jowett's  "  Plato  " — Symposium, 


THE  PERFECT  MAN  133 

power.  It  is  the  beauty  of  holiness  which  entrances 
him,  also  rising  upward  from  the  earth,  mounting  step 
by  step  till  it  comes  at  last  to  the  wondrous  realisation 
in  Christ  Jesus.  It  is  an  ascending  scale  of  knowl- 
edge, and  truth,  and  goodness,  and  faith,  and  love;  till 
the  perfect,  the  complete  man  is  reached.  With  him 
it  is,  in  addition,  a  social  development,  each  contrib- 
uting to  the  good  of  the  whole,  and  all  simultaneously 
arriving,  through  social  discipline,  at  the  goal.  In  St. 
Paul's  thought,  therefore,  the  Christian  life  should  not 
only  be  progressive  in  the  ordinary  sense,  with  ever 
new  insight,  and  ever  fuller  communion,  and  ever  fresh 
discovery  of  the  divine  resources  for  life,  but  should 
also  be  a  service  of  love,  wherein  the  whole  Christian 
community  finds  organic  development.  We  have  al- 
ready seen  many  of  the  mistakes  of  culture,  as  it  is 
commonly  understood,  arise  from  the  neglect  of  this 
aspect.  The  passion  for  perfection,  which  we  have 
seen  is  inherent  in  man,  the  human  quest  after  the 
ideal,  the  vision  of  a  perfect  state  for  the  individual 
and  for  the  society,  find  full  expression  in  the  Chris- 
tian faith;  and  the  emphasis  is  laid,  where  it  must 
be  laid  to  satisfy  us,  on  the  spiritual. 

The  emphasis  must  be  so  laid  on  the  spiritual,  if 
it  is  to  satisfy  our  sense  of  the  fitness  of  things, 
even  in  the  individual  desire  for  a  complete  life. 
We  just  need  to  look  at  our  innate  conception  of 
the  perfect  man  to  assure  us  of  this.  If  we  were 
asked  to  draw  a  picture  of  the  perfect  man,  what 
would  we  consider  the  most  important  things?  We 
would  at  once  agree,  for  example,  that  a  man 
might  have  the  physical  development  and  the  beauty 
of   an    Adonis,    and    yet  if  he  had  an    undeveloped 


134  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

mind,  he  would  not  be  a  man  in  the  sense  that  we 
mean  man.  And  a  man  might  have  a  cultured  mind, 
enriched  by  the  poetry,  and  art,  and  learning  of  the 
ages,  with  fine  discriminating  taste  for  style,  and  with 
capacity  for  profound  thinking,  but  if  his  moral  nature 
be  rudimentary,  his  great  gifts  of  brain  alone  could 
not  put  him  into  our  highest  class.  Further,  he  might 
even  have  a  truly  cultured  conscience,  and  would  yet 
fall  short  of  a  complete  man,  if  the  spiritual  side  of  his 
nature  be  neglected.  This  scale  of  judgment  is  the 
instinctive  creed  of  mankind.  Apart  from  all  ques- 
tions of  origin,  and  all  scientific  theories,  we  classify 
men  in  history  and  in  life  according  to  this  standard 
of  values.  From  the  animal  to  the  intellectual,  from 
the  intellectual  to  the  moral,  from  the  moral  to  the 
spiritual,  is  the  inevitable  appeal,  as  from  a  lower  to 
a  higher  court.  Whatever  be  our  theory  of  the  origin 
of  mind,  or  of  conscience,  or  of  religion,  we  feel  each 
step  to  be  an  advance.  According  to  temperament  and 
the  particular  sphere  which  interests  us  most,  or  where 
our  special  work  lies,  we  will  think  one  of  the  partic- 
ular steps  the  most  important,  either  the  step  from  the 
animal  to  the  intellectual,  or  the  step  from  intellect  to 
moral  life,  or  from  the  moral  to  the  spiritual;  but  the 
order,  and  succession,  and  relative  position  of  the  dif- 
ferent stages  will  remain. 

Even  the  philosophy  which  makes  happiness  the  end 
of  life,  and  which  dismisses  both  conscience  and  soul 
from  the  seat  of  authority,  makes  distinctions  in  the 
quality  of  the  happiness,  and  tries  to  safe-guard  the 
philosophy,  and  at  the  same  time  to  safe-guard  life, 
by  showing  how  much  better  and  more  lasting  the 
higher  pleasures  are  than  the  lower  ones.     John  Stuart 


THE  PERFECT  MAN  135 

Mill  gave  a  certain  nobility  to  the  theory  that  happi- 
ness is  our  being's  end  and  aim,  by  admitting  grades 
of  pleasure,  and  by  trying  to  show  that  a  man  who 
knew  the  higher  pleasure  would  not  willingly  give  it  up 
for  the  lower;  though  at  the  same  time  Mill  was  de- 
stroying the  very  principles  on  which  his  philosophy 
was  based.  "  It  is  an  unquestionable  fact,"  he  says  in 
noble  language,  *'  that  those  who  are  equally  acquainted 
with,  and  equally  capable  of  appreciating  and  enjoy- 
ing both,  do  give  a  marked  preference  to  the  manner 
of  existence  which  employs  their  higher  faculties.  Few 
human  creatures  would  consent  to  be  changed  into  any 
of  the  lower  animals  for  a  promise  of  the  fullest  allow- 
ance of  a  beast's  pleasures ;  no  intelligent  human  being 
.  would  consent  to  be  a  fool,  no  instructed  person  would 
be  an  ignoramus,  no  person  of  feeling  and  conscience 
would  consent  to  be  selfish  and  base,  even  though  they 
should  be  persuaded  that  the  fool,  the  dunce,  or  the 
rascal  is  better  satisfied  with  his  lot  than  they  are  with 
theirs.  They  would  not  resign  what  they  possess  more 
than  he,  for  the  most  complete  satisfaction  of  all  the 
desires  which  they  have  in  common  with  them.  If  they 
ever  fancy  they  would,  it  is  only  in  cases  of  unhappi- 
ness  so  extreme,  that  to  escape  from  it  they  would 
exchange  their  lot  for  almost  any  other,  however  unde- 
sirable in  their  own  eyes.  A  being  of  high  faculties 
requires  more  to  make  him  happy,  is  capable  probably 
of  more  acute  suffering,  and  is  certainly  accessible  to  it 
at  more  points  than  one  of  an  inferior  type ;  but  in  spite 
of  these  liabilities  he  can  never  really  wish  to  sink  into 
what  he  feels  to  be  a  lower  grade  of  existence."  ^  All 
this  is  true,  but  for  other  reasons  than  because  the 

'  Utilitarianism,  p.  12. 


136  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

higher  faculties  give  greater  pleasure;  and  it  may  be 
confidently  affirmed  that  on  Utilitarian  principles  man 
would  never  have  come  to  the  higher  faculties  at  all, 
would  never  have  possessed  the  intellect,  and  feeling, 
and  conscience,  which  can  afford  so  much  satisfaction. 
We  are  not  concerned  in  our  present  connection  with 
any  criticism  of  Mill's  fundamental  position  that  pleas- 
ure is  the  end  of  life,  we  are  only  concerned  with  the 
admission  that,  even  from  that  position,  pleasures  offer 
a  distinction  in  quality,  and  that  therefore  man  ought 
to  seek  satisfaction  in  the  higher  activities  of  his 
nature.  Every  one  practically  recognises  this  distinc- 
tion, that  our  estimation  of  a  life,  even  from  the  point  of 
view  of  its  happiness,  must  take  into  account  the  qual- 
ity of  the  pleasures,  as  well  as  the  quantity.  Every  one 
agrees  that  the  pleasures  of  a  sot  cannot  be  compared 
with  the  pleasures  of  a  philosopher ;  as  Heraclitus  said, 
a  donkey  would  prefer  hay  to  gold,  since  fodder  gives 
more  pleasure  to  a  donkey  than  any  amount  of  gold 
could.  The  distinction  which  Mill  admits,  is  one  ac- 
cepted by  most  philosophers  of  whatever  school  from 
the  time  of  Aristotle,  who  very  justly  made  the  dis- 
tinction a  criticism  of  the  theory  that  pleasure  is  the 
chief  end  of  life,  since,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  we  would 
choose  some  of  these  higher  activities,  even  if  no  pleas- 
ure resulted  from  them.  The  passage  from  Mill  which 
we  have  quoted  is  a  very  eloquent  extension  of  Aris- 
totle's contention,^  that  no  one  would  choose  to  live 
on  condition  of  having  a  child's  intellect  all  bis  life, 
though  he  were  to  enjoy  in  the  highest  possible  degree 
all  the  pleasures  of  a  child;  nor  choose  to  gain  enjoy- 
ment by  the  performance  of  some  extremely  disgrace- 

Nicomachean  Ethics,  Bk.  x. 


THE  PERFECT  MAN  137 

ful  act,  though  he  were  never  to  feel  pain.  The  truth 
is  that  we  do  consider  the  higher  faculties  as  intrin- 
sically more  valuable,  especially  when  we  find  as  a  fur- 
ther fact  of  practical  life  that  a  calculating  pursuit 
of  pleasure  defeats  itself.  It  is  the  paradox  of  life  that 
the  way  to  miss  pleasure  is  to  seek  it  first.  The  very 
first  condition  of  lasting  happiness  is  that  a  life  should 
be  full  of  purpose,  aiming  at  something  outside  self. 
As  a  matter  of  experience,  we  find  that  true  happi- 
ness comes  in  seeking  other  things,  in  the  manifold 
activities  of  life,  in  the  healthful  outgoing  of  all  hu- 
man powers. 

We  thus  come,  by  another  road,  back  to  our  posi- 
tion that  the  ideal  of  a  perfect  man  must  not  only 
include  the  development  of  the  higher  faculties,  but 
must  lay  stress  on  these,  must  rise  in  a  crescendo  from 
sense  to  mind,  from  mind  to  the  moral,  from  the  moral 
to  the  spiritual.  As  in  the  other  spheres,  we  are  forced 
to  make  a  distinction  between  morality  and  spirituality. 
They  are  connected;  they  influence  each  other;  but 
they  are  not  identical.  Some  men,  whose  lives  are 
governed  by  moral  principles,  are  not,  so  far  as  we  can 
see,  spiritually-minded  men;  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
some  truly  religious  men  have  not  as  enlightened  con- 
sciences as  they  should  have,  and  as  we  hope  they  will 
have  before  they  die.  The  two  spheres  are  as  distinct 
as  mind  and  body,  and  as  closely  related.  The  bodily 
state  aflfects  the  mind,  and  mental  conditions  can  affect 
physical  health.  So  the  spiritual  man  cannot  be  essen- 
tially an  immoral  man ;  for,  if  he  were,  he  would  kill 
his  spiritual  life.  And  the  moral  man  will  find  that  he 
cannot  become  even  the  best  of  his  kind,  unless  his 
morality  be  vitalised  by  spirit.    We  see  the  same  dis- 


138  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

tinction  brought  out  in  the  different  way  in  which  men 
look  upon  themselves;  and  here  also  we  see  why  sin- 
cere heart-religion  is  necessary  to  our  thought  of  a 
perfect  man,  even  in  the  interests  of  true  morality.  A 
man  who  never  looks  within,  who  regulates  his  conduct 
by  accepted  rules,  may  be  very  complacent,  and  be 
fairly  satisfied  with  his  attainments.  He  does  not 
feel  the  inward  pressure  of  soul  towards  a  higher  per- 
fection. He  may  be  in  all  things  of  exemplary  life, 
and  naturally  does  not  see  what  more  can  be  asked  of 
him.  He  does  not  hunger  and  thirst  after  righteous- 
ness, and  knows  nothing  of  the  passion  of  the  saints, 
who  speak  in  a  foreign  tongue  to  him.  He  has  neither 
the  depths  nor  the  heights  of  a  man  who  is  God-pos- 
sessed. Such  an  one,  stung  to  madness,  it  may  be, 
by  a  sense  of  sin,  allured  by  the  vision  of  holiness,  is 
in  the  grip  of  powers  unknown  to  the  other;  and  yet 
he  may  be,  nay  is,  the  more  truly  human,  for  his  soul 
has  waked,  and  moved,  and  grows. 

If  the  spiritual  side  of  a  man's  nature  be  undevel- 
oped, he  is  not  truly  full-grown.  Since  the  ideal  is 
a  complete  development,  full  culture  must  mean  that 
no  part  of  the  being  of  man  will  be  overlooked,  and  to 
leave  out  the  spiritual  is  like  Hamlet  with  the  part  of 
the  Prince  of  Denmark  left  out.  It  makes  no  differ- 
ence to  the  argument,  whether  we  call  the  spiritual 
qualities  only  the  finer  attributes  of  mind  or  not.  If 
the  ideal  implies  spiritual  communion  with  the  divine 
(as  it  does  both  in  St.  Paul's  thought  and  in  Plato's), 
a  man  without  it  remains  a  case  of  arrested  develop- 
ment, with  shrunken  soul,  never  reaching  complete 
manhood,  never  attaining  the  true  balance  and  fulness 
of  life. 


THE  PERFECT  MAN  139 

Thus,  if  we  carry  culture  as  a  theory  of  life  far 
enough  up,  and  if  in  accordance  with  the  facts  of 
human  nature  we  accept  the  duty  implied  in  the  posses- 
sion of  spiritual  capacity,  we  are  led  to  the  religious 
position.  It  is  inconsistent  and  illogical,  to  say  the 
least,  to  cover  all  the  lower  reaches  of  life  with  a 
scheme  of  culture,  and  then  to  stop  short,  and  deny 
the  higher  demands,  and  refuse  the  consequences  of 
the  very  scheme  itself.  If  we  accept  the  facts  of  the 
moral  life,  if  we  accept  the  testimony  of  history  and 
experience  as  to  the  spiritual  possibilities  of  man,  we 
will  be  forced  to  admit  the  regal  claims  of  religion. 
Once  we  admit  the  facts  of  spiritual  experience,  what- 
ever be  our  theory  of  their  explanation,  duty  regarding 
them  emerges.  It  means  that  we  should  take  seriously 
this  side  of  our  nature,  which  indeed  makes  us  men 
in  the  true  sense,  able  to  live  in  the  power  of  an  end- 
less life,  with  capacities  that  reach  out  to  the  unseen 
and  eternal.  So  that,  beginning  with  culture  and  con- 
sistently applying  it,  we  come  to  religious  duty. 

And,  on  the  other  hand,  beginning  with  religion,  we 
will  be  led  to  as  wide  a  scheme  of  culture  as  is  possi- 
ble— indeed  such  a  scheme  gets  a  new  sanction,  for  it 
becomes  a  religious  duty.  Religion,  too,  will  save 
culture  from  its  mistakes  and  the  defects  of  its  quality, 
will  save  it  from  barrenness  and  selfish  pre-occupation. 
But  just  because  of  the  sovereign  place  of  the  soul, 
religion  will  make  a  man  put  first  things  first,  and  will 
show  him  that  character  must  come  before  accomplish- 
ments, and  the  graces  of  the  spirit  before  graces  of  the 
mind.  Still,  religion  accepted  in  its  widest  scope  will 
be  the  inspiring  power  for  every  region  of  life,  setting 
its  seal  of  consecration  on  all  human  powers.    It  should 


140  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

radiate  out  as  a  centre  of  light  and  heat,  giving  energy 
and  vitality  to  every  sphere.  It  is  because  the  spiritual 
in  us  is  so  overborne,  so  overweighted  by  the  animal, 
that  we  need  to  be  continually  recalled  to  the  ideal  of 
the  perfect  man.  The  soul  may  be  said  to  be  in  abey- 
ance in  us,  in  a  state  of  suspended  animation,  when, 
indeed,  it  is  not  in  immediate  danger  of  being  asphyx- 
iated for  want  of  air;  and  so  we  need  the  reminder, 
which  every  form  of  idealism  brings,  of  the  imperious 
claims  of  soul. 

If  then  a  man  is  to  develop  the  higher  spiritual  facul- 
ties, he  must  not  cling  stubbornly  to  the  organs  of 
knowledge  suitable  to  lower  spheres.  When  St.  Paul 
wrote,  "  Now  the  natural  man  receiveth  not  the  things 
of  the  Spirit  of  God ;  for  they  are  foolishness  to  him ; 
neither  can  hr  kno\;  them,  because  they  are  spiritually 
discerned,"  ^  his  argument  is  that  there  is  a  special 
organ  of  faith,  or  rather  a  spiritual  sense,  what  may  be 
called  the  religious  faculty,  which  a  man  must  have 
before  he  can  have  anything  to  say  about  the  things  of 
the  soul.  They  are  to  be  discerned  and  judged,  not  by 
the  exercise  of  thought  and  reason,  not  by  speculation 
and  theory,  but  by  spiritual  enlightenment,  by  inward 
revelation ;  because  religion  at  its  deepest  means  the 
consciousness  of  contact  with  spirit.  Religion,  there- 
fore, is  not  philosophy  to  be  built  up  and  logicated 
about,  but  inspiration  to  be  immediately  felt  and  seen; 
not  something  at  second-hand,  but  something  discern- 
ible by  the  receptive  heart.  It  follows,  as  St.  Paul  goes 
on  to  show,  that  neither  the  spiritual  man  nor  spirit- 
ual things  can  be  judged  by  the  carnal  mind.      His 

*  I  Cor.  ii.  14. 


THE  PERFECT  MAN         V^o^t^^^^ 

judgment  is  vitiated  by  having  no  criterion  within  him- 
self, so  that  he  could  not  know  spiritual  things  if  he 
saw  them;  he  could  not  recognise  them,  for  they  do 
not  Hud  him,  to  use  Coleridge's  word  with  which  he 
expressed  the  self-evidencing  power  of  Christian  truth. 
"  The  man  in  the  street  "  has  nothing  to  say  to  religious 
truth,  which  needs  a  prepared  and  sympathetic  spirit. 
This  is  unpalatable  doctrine,  for  to-day  the  man  in  the 
street  claims  to  be  the  final  judge  of  all  things.  But 
unpalatable  or  not,  it  is  true  doctrine :  we  cannot  go  to 
him  to  settle  the  great  questions  of  religion,  any  more 
than  a  scientific  man  would  go  to  him  with  any  fresh 
scientific  discovery  he  may  imagine  he  has  made:  he 
wants  the  approval  and  assent  of  the  authorities  on  his 
subject,  the  specialists  in  his  branch  of  science.  So  in 
religion,  the  man  in  the  street  is  out  of  court,  incom- 
petent to  judge,  as  the  colour-blind  is  to  test  colours, 
or  the  unmusical  to  pronounce  verdict  on  a  symphony. 
Thus,  this  principle  of  St.  Paul's  is  not  an  isolated 
one,  applicable  only  in  a  mysterious  sphere  called 
religion ;  it  runs  right  through  life  in  every  region — 
the  things  of  sense  are  discerned  by  sense,  the  things 
of  intellect  are  discerned  by  intellect,  the  things  of 
spirit  are  discerned  by  spirit.  There  is  nothing  exclu- 
sive about  this  law,  though  it  excludes.  If  a  man  is 
out  of  court  in  spiritual  matters,  it  is  not  because  of 
some  mechanical  arbitrary  decision  that  disfranchises 
him.  Just  as  an  animal  that  lives  a  purely  animal 
existence  cannot  enter  into  the  thoughts  and  reasonings 
of  a  man,  though  the  animal  can  see,  and  feel,  and 
enjoy,  and  lives  a  sentient  life  as  truly  as  the  man  does ; 
so  the  carnal  mind  cannot  enter  into  the  higher  reaches 
of  spirit,  though  it  can  reason  and  think.    As  intellect 


142  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

is  on  a  different  range  of  things  from  sense,  so  the 
spiritual  is  on  a  different  range  of  things  from  intel- 
lect. It  uses  the  same  powers  of  reason,  and  con- 
science, and  will,  but  these  powers  energised  by  spirit. 
There  are  analogies  in  other  spheres  of  the  same  dis- 
tinction. The  poet,  for  instance,  does  not  come  to 
conclusions  as  the  logician  does ;  he  possesses  the  pen- 
etrative imagination,  which  sees  truth  by  instinct,  so 
that  where  another  limps  he  soars,  and  hears  the 
angel's  song,  and  sees  the  shining  of  the  glory. 

It  is  not  a  law  of  deprivation  imposed  on  some  men 
from  the  outside,  but  a  law  of  affinity,  by  which  like 
is  attracted  by  like.  "  Among  men,"  St.  Paul  asks, 
"  who  knoweth  the  things  of  the  man  except  the  spirit 
of  the  man  that  is  in  him  ?  "  ^  Similarly,  there  is  a 
region  of  inner  personal  relationship  with  God,  of  con- 
sciousness of  God,  in  which  a  man  can  enter  into  the 
things  of  God,  can,  when  touched  by  the  life-giving 
Spirit,  see  and  believe  and  humbly  accept  the  wondrous 
vision  of  love  and  mercy  and  forgiving  grace.  So  that 
what  may  seem  foolishness  to  some  may  be  the  very 
essence  of  wisdom;  and  what  may  be  beyond  knowl- 
edge, outside  the  bounds  of  experience  of  some,  may 
be  a  first  principle  of  the  religious  man,  because  these 
things  are  spiritually  discerned.  The  implication  of 
this  is  that  ordinary  methods  of  investigation,  and  ordi- 
nary tests  of  evidence  and  ordinary  means  of  knowl- 
edge, are  beyond  the  mark  when  they  seek  to  limit  the 
soul  of  man.  To  insist  on  everything  being  brought 
within  the  control  of  scientific  evidence,  is  to  cut  off 
from  life  more  than  most  people  imagine,  and  to  limit 
the  sphere  of  man's  power  and  interests  to  a  very  nar- 

*  I  Cor.  ii.  II. 


THE  PERFECT  MAN  143 

row  one  indeed.  The  organ  of  spiritual  discernment 
is  faith,  and  faith  is  not  just  a  blind  plunge  into  the 
unknown,  but  is  a  testing  of  the  alleged  spiritual  facts, 
in  itself  as  reasonable  a  process  as  any  other  testing 
of  facts.  Intellectual  truth  asks  for  intellectual  verifi- 
cation: spiritual  truth  asks  for  spiritual  verification; 
and  the  one  demand  is  as  reasonable  as  the  other.  Hux- 
ley in  his  Lay  Sermons  says  that  faith  has  been  proved 
a  cardinal  sin  by  science,  which  is  true  about  credu- 
lity and  superstition,  where  science  has  done  nothing 
but  good ;  but  Romanes  ^  shows  that  in  this  statement 
Huxley  falls  into  the  common  error  of  identifying  faith 
with  opinion ;  and  with  just  cause  he  adds,  "  What  a 
terrible  hell  science  would  have  made  of  the  world,  if 
she  had  abolished  the  spirit  of  faith  even  in  human 
relations." 
tThere  is  a  region  of  life  which  lies  beyond  the  rea- 
soning faculty,  a  point  of  contact  between  the  human 
soul  and  the  unseen  universe,  giving  a  possible  inter- 
course between  our  spirit  and  the  divine.  It  may  ap- 
pear foolishness  to  the  man  who  insists  on  examining 
it  by  the  ordinary  critical  instruments.  Life  is  beyond 
criticism,  which  can  only  touch  the  fringe,  can  only 
work  on  the  forms  in  which  life  manifests  itself.  The 
methods  and  manner  of  appearing  of  life  can  be  inves- 
tigated, but  life  itself  is  inscrutable;  it  evades  the 
microscope  and  the  test-tube.  And  what  is  true  of 
life  is  true  of  spiritual  life,  which  is  independent  of 
criticism.  There  are  things  which  bafile  analysis,  the 
mysteries  which  are  only  made  more  mysterious  by  all 
our  increase  of  knowledge.  There  are  things  which 
pass  knowledge,  and  yet  are  known ;  and  until  we  come 

^  Thoughts  on  Religion,  p.  141. 


144  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

to  this  humbly,  we  are  shutting  ourselves  out  from  a 
world  of  beauty,  and  truth,  and  love,  into  which  we 
ought  to  have  inlet,  and  we  are  wilfully  impoverish- 
ing our  life.  Demonstration  is  a  different  thing  from 
conviction.  We  might  demonstrate  till  doomsday  that 
men  are  sinners,  but  that  does  not  mean  conviction  of 
sin  as  it  is  meant  in  religion.  We  might  prove  the 
existence  of  God  by  abstract  reasoning,  but  that  is 
another  thing  from  the  consciousness  of  God,  the 
knowledge  of  God,  which  must  be  a  spiritual  expe- 
rience if  it  is  to  be  anything.  A  recognition  of  this 
puts  criticism  in  its  right  place  at  once:  it  must  stand 
at  the  Temple-gate  or  the  outer  Court,  it  has  no  entry 
to  the  Holy  of  Holies.  Criticism  cannot  even  paint  a 
picture,  and  if  it  makes  us  look  upon  a  picture  as  some- 
thing merely  to  be  pulled  to  pieces  and  analyzed,  it 
may  keep  us  from  being  able  to  enjoy  a  picture.  We 
must  refuse  to  be  jockeyed  out  of  our  larger  life,  and 
to  be  dislodged  from  what  we  know  to  be  facts  of  spir- 
itual experience,  as  truly  facts  as  any  of  observation. 
We  must  assert  the  supremacy  of  the  soul.  Some  have 
in  the  interests  of  the  soul  denied  and  starved  the  body, 
or  the  mind,  or  both;  but  it  is  a  nobler  error  than  to 
deny  and  starve  the  soul  in  the  interests  of  body  or 
mind. 

The  old  false  teachers,   who  at  first  seemed  hard 

To  nature — bidding.  Crucify  the  flesh 

To  save  the  soul, — were  merciful  to  these; 

For  these  would  crucify  the  soul  itself, 

And  stifle  back  upon  itself  the  cry. 

And  deepest  craving  of  the  human  heart, 

The  unutterable  thirst  of  man  for  God.* 

*  Mrs.  Hamilton  King,  The  Disciples — Ugo  Bassi, 


THE  PERFECT  MAN  145 

The  demand  of  a  complete  culture,  which  would  be 
true  to  its  own  principles,  is  for  proportional  develop- 
ment. It  should  leave  no  part  of  the  being  of  man  out 
of  its  scheme,  and  should  aim  at  a  complete  balance 
and  poise  of  nature,  a  full-orbed  life  in  the  fullest 
sense.  While  it  concedes  the  duty  of  developing  the 
physical  powers,  it  asks  emphatically  for  mental 
growth;  and  there  it  does  not  confine  its  attention  to 
one  side  of  the  intellect,  but  recognises  the  place  of 
imagination  and  the  finer  sensibilities  that  make  the 
poet  and  the  artist.  It  also  sees  the  important  func- 
tion of  the  emotions  in  the  life  of  man,  and  therefore 
must  give  room  for  culture  of  the  heart;  for  as  John 
Selden  says,  "  The  diflference  of  men  is  very  great  (you 
would  scarce  think  them  to  be  of  the  same  species )  and 
yet  it  consists  more  in  the  affections  than  in  the  intel- 
lect." ^  Nothing  is  deeper  and  stronger  in  man  than 
the  feelings,  and  any  selfish  scheme  of  culture  con- 
demns itself,  by  omitting  scope  for  the  play  of  the 
tender  sentiments,  that  indeed  bind  society  together, 
and  make  any  kind  of  culture  possible  at  all. 

Further,  there  is  the  region  of  morals,  the  need  of  an 
enlightened  conscience  and  a  disciplined  will.  This  cul- 
ture of  character  must  take  precedence  of  the  finest  cul- 
ture of  mind.  Not  even  an  exquisite  taste  for  the  fine 
arts  and  an  infallible  judgment  of  literature  can  make 
up  for  a  life  that  is  undeveloped  in  other  lines.  Such 
aesthetic  attainment  cannot  save  a  life  from  failure, 
when  there  is  at  the  back  of  it  a  weak  character. 
Charles  I.  was  a  man  of  taste  and  imagination  and  even 
intellect,  with  great  knowledge  of  art,  and  a  genuine 
love  of  literature.     His  collection  of  paintings  was  ad- 

'  Table  Talk. 


146  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

mired  throughout  Europe  for  the  fine  taste  displayed  in 
the  selection.  When  a  captive  awaiting  judgment,  he 
devoted  hours  daily  not  only  to  Bishop  Andrewes,  and 
Hooker's  great  book,  but  to  Tasso,  Ariosto,  Spenser's 
Faerie  Queen,  and  Shakespeare.  Yet  he  was  of  flighty, 
and  confused,  and  perverse  brain,  and  was  anything 
but  a  wise  king.  He  never  seemed  able  to  accept  facts, 
to  say  nothing  of  being  able  even  dimly  to  read  the 
signs  of  the  times,  and  staggered  on  to  his  doom 
blindly  and  stupidly. 

Finally,  the  perfect  man  must  have  a  life  above 
sense  and  time,  rising,  as  in  Plato's  ideal,  from  fair 
forms  to  fair  practices,  and  from  fair  practices  to  fair 
thoughts,  and  from  fair  thoughts  till  he  touches  the 
infinite  region  of  spirit.  Without  this  higher  culture, 
life  must  remain  one-sided  and  disproportionate,  with- 
out the  depth  and  richness  of  a  complete  nature.  Thus, 
step  by  step  we  have  risen  to  the  insistent  demand  of 
religion,  which  claims  to  cover  all  the  ground,  conse- 
crating every  power  and  capacity,  that  they  may  be 
used  for  a  higher  purpose  than  even  their  own  best 
perfection.  Religion  admits  the  truth  and  the  duty 
involved  in  the  aesthetic  ideal,  but  transcends  that 
truth  with  a  higher  truth,  and  includes  that  duty  in  a 
wider  duty  still.  What  that  is  we  will  seek  to  dis- 
cover in  the  Christian  Solution,  after  we  have  consid- 
ered the  rival  method  which  opposes  self-culture  by 
self-restraint. 


VI 

THE  ASCETIC  IDEAL  —  RESTRAINT 

IN  opposition  to  the  theory  of  the  natural  culfetva- 
tion  of  all  human  powers,  the  world  has  ever 
had  presented  to  it  the  rival  theory,  which  works 
by  a  rigorous  method  of  self-repression.  It 
bases  itself  on  the  universal  experience  of  tlie  neces- 
sity for  self-denial  and  strict  self-control.  All  the 
great  teachers  of  the  world  are  agreed  in  protesting 
against  the  dominion  of  appetite  in  the  life  of  man. 
The  sort  of  life  which  naturally  appeals  to  man  can-^ 
not  have  full  sway  unhindered.  Progress  in  reform,  I 
in  legislation,  in  social  conditions,  as  well  as  in  the  per-  • 
sonal  life,  is  founded  on  this  necessity.  The  moral  life 
of  man  is  possible,  because  he  is  able  to  refuse  present 
gratification  for  the  sake  of  some  larger  good,  is  able 
to  postpone  even  clamant  pleasure  in  view  of  some  end 
he  sets  before  him.  Self-control  is  the  first  lesson  of 
life.  The  quarrel  which  moralists  have  ever  had  with 
what  they  call  the  worldly  life,  is  just  that  it  is  blind  to 
results,  that  it  prefers  the  present  to  the  future,  and 
refuses  to  make  any  sacrifice  of  present  good  for  the 
sake  of  larger  future  good.  It  has  not  patience,  which 
is  another  name  for  self-control.  The  worldly  man  is 
for  a  bird  in  the  hand,  says  Bunyan.  It  is  a  marginal 
note  which  he  appends  to  a  scene  in  the  Interpreter's 
House.  "  I  saw  in  my  dream  that  the  Interpreter  took 
Christian  by  the  hand  and  had  him  into  a  little  room 

147 


1 


148  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

where  sat  two  little  children,  each  one  in  his  chair. 
The  name  of  the  eldest  was  Passion,  and  the  name  of 
the  other  Patience.  Passion  seemed  to  be  much  dis- 
contented; but  Patience  was  very  quiet.  Then  Chris- 
tian asked,  What  is  the  reason  of  the  discontent  of  Pas- 
sion? The  Interpreter  answered.  The  Governor  of 
them  would  have  him  stay  for  his  best  things  till  the 
beginning  of  the  next  year;  but  he  will  have  all  now; 
but  Patience  is  willing  to  wait.  Then  I  saw  that  one 
came  to  Passion,  and  brought  him  a  bag  of  treasure, 
and  poured  it  down  at  his  feet,  the  which  he  took  up 
and  rejoiced  therein,  and  withal  laughed  Patience  to 
scorn.  But  I  beheld  but  awhile,  and  he  had  lavished 
all  away,  and  had  nothing  left  him  but  rags."  The 
Interpreter  expounds  the  matter  by  making  Passion  a 
figure  of  the  men  of  this  world,  and  Patience  a  figure 
of  the  men  of  that  which  is  to  come.  It  is  Bunyan's 
inimitably  graphic  way  of  drawing  a  distinction,  which 
all  moralists  make  in  some  form  or  other. 

The  duty  of  self-control  is  further  enforced,  not 
merely  as  a  choice  between  two  possible  good  courses, 
the  better  of  which  is  got  through  patience,  but  also 
because  of  the  actual  existence  of  evil.  The  exist- 
ence of  evil  is  a  fact  of  experience,  whether  we  look 
within  or  without;  and  men  are  face  to  face  with  the 
practical  problem  how  they  are  to  deal  with  it,  quite 
apart  from  any  theories  about  the  origin  of  evil,  and 
the  essential  nature  of  evil,  or  any  possible  explanation 
of  its  meaning.  The  different  philosophical  theories 
on  these  points  do  affect  the  particular  plan  of  life 
adopted  by  different  men,  as  we  saw  when  dealing  with 
culture  as  a  religion,  and  as  we  will  further  see  in  con- 
sidering the  conception  of  evil  which  underlies  asceti- 


THE  ASCETIC  IDEAL -RESTRAINT    149 

cism,  but  apart  from  any  reference  to  such  theories, 
the  mere  fact  of  acknowledged  evil  creates  the  prac- 
tical difficulty  as  to  its  treatment.  It  will  not  be 
ignored  for  long,  as  so  many  aesthetic  schemes  ignore 
it ;  and  it  is  at  least  the  merit  of  the  ascetic  ideal  that 
it  unflinchingly  faces  the  problem.  Its  practical  treat- 
ment of  the  fact  of  evil  is  a  demand  from  men  for  the 
renunciation  of  personal  gratifications  that  minister  to 
evil;  and  since  it  sees  that  the  spiritual  faculties  must 
be  cultivated  to  some  extent  at  the  expense  of  the  an- 
imal instincts,  it  advocates  even  abstinence  from  law- 
ful pleasures,  and  constant  restraint  of  natural  tastes 
and  propensities.  The  next  step  is  a  simple  one,  the 
denial  that  what  we  call  the  blessings  of  life  are  good 
in  themselves,  even  the  deliberate  judgment  that  ordi- 
nary human  life  militates  against  the  higher  instincts 
of  the  soul;  till  the  ideal  becomes  a  mutilation  of  all 
natural  desires,  and  the  cramping  of  all  human  powers. 
It  accepts  with  calm  decision  what  George  Meredith 
calls  the  lesson  of  the  flesh — 

The  lesson  writ  in  red  since  first  Time  ran 
A  hunter  hunting  down  the  beast  in  man; 
That  till  the  chasing  out  of  its  last  vice, 
The  flesh  was  fashioned  but  for  sacrifice.* 

We  will  never  make  anything  of  the  great  problem 
represented  by  the  antithesis  of  Culture  and  Restraint, 
till  we  accept  the  facts  on  both  sides;  and,  as  we 
acknowledged  the  legitimate  claims  of  culture,  we 
must  recognise  that  the  ascetic  scheme  is  not  just  a 
form  of  insanity,  a  blind  fanaticism  with  no  solid 
groundwork  of  fact.     It  springs  from  facts  and  forces, 

*  Ode,  France. 


150  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

which  have  their  ultimate  seat  in  the  nature  of  man. 
It  may  overstep  the  work  of  the  necessary  discipHne 
required  to  keep  the  body  in  subjection,  but  it  at  least 
honours  human  nature  by  demanding  the  ascendancy 
of  the  higher  instincts  over  the  lower.  The  heart  of 
man  has  ever  acknowledged  the  grandeur  of  this  view, 
inspired  as  it  is  with  a  deep  sense  of  the  solemnity  of 
human  life.  Even  the  monastic  system,  which  is  so 
much  discredited  in  modern  thought,  was  a  noble  at- 
tempt on  a  magnificent  scale  to  purify  the  flesh  of  its 
grossness,  and  to  lift  life  to  a  higher  level.  It  was  the 
expression  of  the  need  of  discipline,  and  of  the  deep 
thought  of  life  as  a  vocation.  To  the  first  instinctive 
method  of  the  world  it  opposed  the  method,  which 
chooses  poverty  instead  of  riches,  humility  and  resig- 
nation of  will  instead  of  the  pride  of  life. 

The  ascetic  ideal  gets  much  of  its  force  from  the 
failure  of  the  rival  method  for  a  satisfied  life,  which 
has  been  for  ages  judged  and  for  ages  found  want- 
ing. It  points  to  the  testimony  of  blase  world- 
lings, who  preach  by  their  very  faces  the  vanity 
of  vanities,  the  world-weariness  of  the  world's 
votaries.  It  has  learned  the  truth  of  the  strange 
paradox  that  the  most  certain  method  of  losing 
happiness  is  to  seek  it,  and  from  that  palpable  fail- 
ure it  feels  justified  in  seeking  to  "  crush  that  ever- 
craving  lust  for  bliss,  which  kills  all  bHss."  So  that 
when  the  natural  theory  has  had  full  sway  in  any 
period  of  history,  bringing  its  inevitable  heartsickness, 
we  find  a  reaction  towards  a  stricter  manner  of  living. 
The  great  movements  towards  ascetic  practices,  which 
we  see  in  history,  are  not  chance  phenomena,  but  are 
related  to  eternal  facts  in  man's  life.     As  John  Mor- 


THE  ASCETIC  IDEAL— RESTRAINT    151 

ley  says  of  the  Puritanism  of  Cromweirs  time,  "  Puri- 
tanism came  from  the  deeps.  It  was  like  Stoicism, 
Monasticism,  Jansenism,  even  Mohammedanism,  a 
manifestation  of  elements  in  human  nature  which  are 
indestructible.  It  flowed  from  yearnings  that  make 
themselves  felt  in  Eastern  world  and  Western;  it 
sprang  from  aspirations  that  breathe  in  men  and 
women  of  many  communions  and  faiths;  it  arose  in 
instincts  that  seldom  conquer  for  more  than  a  brief 
season,  and  yet  are  never  crushed.  An  ascetic  and 
unworldly  way  of  thinking  about  life,  a  rigorous  moral 
strictness,  the  subjugation  of  sense  and  appetite,  a 
coldness  to  every  element  in  worship  and  ordinance 
external  to  the  believer's  own  soul,  a  dogma  unyield- 
ing as  cast-iron — all  these  things  satisfy  moods  and 
sensibilities  in  man  that  are  often  silent  and  fleeting, 
are  easily  drowned  in  reaction,  but  are  readily  respon- 
sive to  the  awakening  voice."  ^ 

It  has  to  be  noted  that  the  finest  religious  and 
ethical  systems  of  the  pre-Christian  ages  resulted  in 
forms  of  ascetic  creed  and  practice,  which  were  car- 
ried much  further  than  these  have  ever  been  in  the 
Christian  Church.  The  asceticism  of  early  Indian 
religion  has  been  perhaps  the  most  thoroughgoing 
mortification  of  the  flesh  ever  tried  by  man.  In  fact 
the  consistent  logical  position  of  asceticism  is  only 
found  in  Brahmanism,  which  associated  evil  not  only 
with  the  body  of  man  but  with  everything  finite,  so 
that  the  ideal  became  the  complete  absorption  of  all 
individual  life.  Life  was  inherently  evil;  but  their 
doctrine  of  transmigration  made  it  impossible  to  escape 
from  the  evil  by  ruthlessly  cutting  the  cord.      That 

'  Morley,  Oliver  Cromwell,  p.  47. 


15*  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

would  be  only  to  prolong  the  agony,  and  the  more 
effectually  to  enmesh  the  soul  in  evil.  The  only  way 
for  a  man  to  escape  from  his  fatal  heritage  was  to 
suppress  at  its  source  the  fountain  of  desire,  from 
which  life,  and  therefore  evil,  flows.  The  very  soul  it- 
self had  to  die,  by  choking  off  its  innate  activities.  The 
soul  was  to  be  liberated  from  its  deadly  prison  by  at- 
tenuating the  link  between  it  and  existence  as  much  as 
possible.  The  aim  was  the  extinction  of  desire,  an 
impassive  state,  where  the  natural  appetites,  and  even 
the  natural  affections,  were  reduced  to  a  minimum. 

Stoicism,  which  was  the  only  Greek  or  Roman 
philosophy  that  from  its  moral  earnestness  could  be 
at  all  a  rival  of  Christianity,  had  for  its  ideal  a  similar 
impassive  calm.  Starting  from  a  different  source,  and 
traversing  different  ground,  it  yet  came  to  a  some- 
what similar  end  as  Buddhism.  The  Stoic  ideal  was 
passionlessness,^  a  self-contained  state,  in  which  the 
natural  impulses  were  to  be  crushed,  not  merely  chas- 
tened into  conformity  with  a  higher  law,  and  the  social 
affections  were  to  be  rooted  out,  not  guided  and 
guarded  from  abuse.  Two  such  great  tendencies  as 
these  could  not  converge  to  one  point,  in  such  dissim- 
ilar conditions  as  India  and  Greece  or  Rome  afforded, 
without  being  expressive  of  facts  of  life. 

Huxley  even  goes  the  length  of  drawing  from  this 
the  moral  that  modern  thought  about  the  ethical  state 
of  man  tends  to  move  towards  something  like  the  same 
result.  He  makes  short  work  of  those  who  think  that 
ethical  evolution  goes  along  the  lines  of  the  cosmic 
evolution.     He  holds  that  moral  development  must  be 

^aTCoBsta — implying  the  suppression  of  desire,  as  far  as 
possible.    • 


THE  ASCETIC  IDEAL— RESTRAINT    153 

by  different  means  from  those  which  furthered  phys- 
ical development,  not  by  such  principles  as  the  strug- 
gle for  existence  and  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  but  by 
the  restraint  and  overturning  of  these  principles.  Men 
in  society  are  subject  to  the  cosmic  process,  by  which 
the  strongest,  the  most  self-assertive,  tend  to  tread 
down  the  weaker;  but  moral  advance  can  only  be  by 
restraining  those  instincts,  and  by  struggling  against 
the  natural  tendency.  "  Social  progress  means  a 
checking  of  the  cosmic  process  at  every  step,  and  the 
substitution  for  it  of  another,  which  may  be  called  the 
ethical  process;  the  end  of  which  is  not  the  survival 
of  those  who  may  happen  to  be  the  fittest  in  respect 
of  the  whole  of  the  conditions  which  exist,  but  of  those 
who  are  ethically  the  best."  ^  The  practice  of  good- 
ness or  virtue,  he  asserts,  involves  a  course  of  con- 
duct, which  in  all  respects  is  opposed  to  that  which 
leads  to  success  in  the  ordinary  struggle  for  existence, 
and  in  place  of  ruthless  self-assertion  it  demands  self- 
restraint. 

It  is  a  new  scientific  statement  of  an  ascetic  ideal, 
which  man  must  have  if  he  will  have  moral  progress. 
The  ethical  progress  of  society  in  Huxley's  judgment 
depends,  not  on  imitating  the  cosmic  process,  but  in 
combating  it;  and  he  thinks  we  have  ground  for  a 
certain  measure  of  success  in  thus  subduing  nature  to 
man's  highest  ends.  He  foresees  that  we  shall  have 
to  count  upon  reckoning  with  a  tenacious  and  power- 
ful enemy  as  long  as  the  world  lasts,  but  on  the  other 
hand  he  sees  no  limit  to  the  extent  in  which  true  suc- 
cess may  be  achieved.  "  Much  may  be  done  to  change 
the  nature  of  man  himself.      The  intelligence  which 

^Evolution  and  Ethics  (The  Romanes  Lecture,  1893).  p.  33. 


154  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

has  converted  the  brother  of  the  wolf  into  the  laith- 
ful  guardian  of  the  flock,  ought  to  be  able  to  do  some- 
thing towards  curbing  the  instincts  of  savagery  in  civ- 
ilised men."  ^  He  calls  on  us  in  strong  virile  tone  to 
play  the  man,  to  attempt  some  work  of  noble  note,  to 
cherish  the  good  that  falls  in  our  way,  to  bear  the  evil 
in  and  around  us  with  stout  hearts,  striving  ever  to 
diminish  it.  There  could  not  be  a  more  succinct  state- 
ment of  some  aspects  of  the  ascetic  ideal,  such  aspects 
for  example  as  that  ethical  nature  has  to  struggle  with 
a  tenacious  and  powerful  enemy,  has  to  use  self-re- 
straint in  place  of  any  form  of  self-assertion,  and  has 
to  oppose  the  cosmic  process  at  every  step.  It  cuts  the 
ground  from  Huxley's  own  philosophical  position  of 
agnosticism;  since  he  does  not  explain  why  we  should 
so  run  against  nature  and  the  great  cosmic  process, 
which  has  evolved  man  from  the  animal;  but  it  stands 
to  Huxley's  credit  as  a  courageous  man,  who  accepted 
the  facts  of  moral  life,  as  he  accepted  facts  in  scien- 
tific observation.  It  does  credit  also  to  his  large- 
hearted  and  noble  thought  about  duty,  that  he  should 
push  the  facts  of  moral  life  to  their  conclusion,  in 
summoning  men  to  the  great  moral  task  to  be 

strong  in  will 
To  strive,  to  seek,  to  find,  and  not  to  yield. 

The  ascetic  ideal,  when  rigidly  pursued,  has  again 
and  again  resulted  in  various  forms  of  self-torture,  and 
mutilation,  and  withdrawal  from  the  world.  Many  of 
these  forms  found  a  home  in  the  Christian  Church, 
solitary  anchorites  like  the  hermits  of  Egypt:  pillar- 

'  Evolution  and  Ethics,  p.  36. 


THE  ASCETIC  IDEAL— RESTRAINT    155 

saints  like  St.  Simeon  Stylites;  flagellants  like  An- 
thony of  Padua,  who  lashed  themselves  in  public, 
singing  penitential  Psalms:  and  the  great  Monastic 
system  generally,  which  ultimately  spread  throughout 
the  whole  of  Christendom.  In  the  next  chapter  we 
will  trace  the  origin  and  growtli  of  Asceticism  in  the 
Christian  Church;  but  we  would  not  be  doing  any- 
thing like  justice  to  their  attitude,  if  we  left  it  as  if 
their  sole  motive  was  an  intense  desire  to  keep  them- 
selves unspotted  from  the  world,  and  to  avoid  tempta- 
tion. There  were  two  deeper  objects  in  their  attempts 
at  complete  severance  from  the  world's  evil. 

One  was  to  reduce  the  rebellious  flesh  to  subjection 
to  a  higher  law  of  holiness.  They  were  on  fire  with 
the  passion  for  purity,  and  shrank  from  no  sacrifice 
which  they  thought  would  further  it.  They  knew,  as 
all  men  discover,  that  it  is  easier  to  reform  opinions 
than  to  reform  habits,  and  to  change  their  creed  than 
to  change  their  life.  They  were  set  upon  the  harder 
task,  only  spurred  on  the  keener  by  the  difficulty. 
They  would  tear  up  evil  from  their  nature  by  the 
roots,  and  enter  the  Kingdom  maimed  if  need  be,  with 
honourable  scars  of  conflict,  like  the  soldier's  mutilated 
limb,  a  royal  seal  signal  of  service.  It  became  in  later 
times  a  formal  method,  and  even  a  fashion,  but  the 
great  ascetics  were  moved  by  the  profound  longing  to 
have  done  altogether  with  sin,  and  to  attain  moral 
purity. 

The  other  object  was  the  ambition  to  penetrate  the 
secrets  of  the  celestial  light,  to  devote  themselves  to 
divine  contemplation  that  they  might  enter  into  a 
fuller  spiritual  communion.  "  What  is  the  reason," 
asks  Thomas  A  Kempis,  "  why  some  of  the  Saints  were 


156  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

so  perfect  and  contemplative?  Because  they  laboured 
to  mortify  themselves  wholly  to  all  earthly  desires ;  and 
therefore  they  could  with  their  whole  heart  fix  them- 
selves upon  God,  and  be  free  for  holy  retirement."  ^  It 
was  held  that  the  heavenly  vision  could  be  expe- 
rienced only  through  the  practice  of  rigorous  mortifi- 
cation, interdicting  themselves  from  all  gratification, 
making  themselves  pure  channels,  so  to  speak,  of  heav- 
enly grace.  This  ideal  of  spiritual  intuition  to  be 
reached  through  moral  purity  represents  an  eternal 
fact,  which  is  verified  in  every  religious  experience. 
Whether  the  ascetic  method  succeeds  best,  or  even  at 
all,  in  attaining  moral  purity,  is  not  at  present  our 
point.  Granting  their  premise  that  it  was  a  method,  it 
was  a  true  instinct  which  assured  them  that  they  would 
therefore  enter  into  a  deeper  religious  communion. 
This  desire  for  God,  to  taste  the  joys  of  divine  fellow- 
ship, to  be  emptied  of  self  and  filled  with  the  light  of 
God's  presence,  was  the  inspiring  motive.  We  cannot 
do  justice  to  this  phase  of  religious  life,  unless  we  see 
in  it  more  than  mere  protest  against  evil  in  the  world, 
but  also  a  passionate  desire  to  enter  into  divine  mys- 
teries. When  they  cut  themselves  off  from  the  clogs 
and  distractions  of  earth,  in  order  to  give  themselves 
up  to  holy  meditation,  their  ultimate  purpose  was  spir- 
itual exaltation.  Tennyson  with  great  insight  ex- 
presses this  longing  in  his  study  of  St.  Simeon  Stylites, 
who  is  made  to  describe  his  terrible  sufferings  vol- 
untarily endured,  as  he  lay  with  his  right  leg  chained 
into  the  crag,  before  he  changed  it  for  his  even  more 
uncomfortable  posture  on  the  pillar ;  and  in  his  descrip- 
tion he  reveals  what  led  him  to  seek  such  hardships. 

^  Imitatio  Christi,  Bk.  i.,  ch.  xi. 


THE  ASCETIC  IDEAL— RESTRAINT    157 

Three  winters,  that  my  soul  might  grow  to  Thee, 
I  lived  up  there  on  yonder  mountain  side. 


The  object  of  the  ascetic  was,  not  merely  to  procure 
the  dominion  of  the  good  over  the  bad  by  the  rigid 
practice  of  self-denial,  but  thereby  to  use  what  was 
believed  to  be  the  approved  method  of  entering  into 
communion  with  God. 

We  need  not  now  enter  into  the  many  grades  of 
asceticism,  and  the  different  shades  of  motive  which 
entered  into  the  discipline,  from  the  extravagances  of 
anchorites,  to  the  little  acts  of  self-sacrifice  of  daily  life 
which  keep  human  life  sweet.  We  will  consider  the 
truth  at  the  bottom  of  all  asceticism,  the  necessity  for 
self-denial,  and  its  ethical  value.  The  very  word 
asceticism  ^  shows  from  its  derivation  the  truth, 
which  underlies  even  the  extravagances  which  the 
name  now  suggests.  In  ancient  Greece,  the  word 
meant  the  discipline  undergone  by  athletes  in  the  course 
of  their  training;  and  quite  naturally  the  word  was 
taken  over  into  Stoic  philosophy,  to  mean  the  disci- 
pline needed  in  the  practice  of  virtue  in  controlling  the 
appetites  and  passions.  In  the  Christian  Church  it 
had  at  first  the  same  meaning,  the  exercise  of  absti- 
nence and  of  restraint  as  religious  means ;  and  then  it 
came  to  denote  the  attempt  to  attain  holiness  by  self- 
mortification,  by  the  practice  of  all  manner  of  bodily 
austerities,  and  by  generally  starving  out  the  evil 
nature  in  man.  It  was  originally  discipline,  which  be- 
gan as  simplicity  of  living,  the  voluntary  surrender  of 
ordinary  comforts  and  possessions.     The  root  princi- 


158  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

pie  is  the  moral  obligation  which  demands  that  a  mfin 
must  have  his  nature  under  the  curb,  since,  as  Stoic 
morality  held,  he  who  rules  not  himself  is  a  slave. 
Gradually  asceticism  came  to  look  upon  self-mortifica- 
tion as  a  good  in  itself,  not  merely  as  a  means  towards 
something  which  was  considered  worth  the  sacrifice; 
but  the  thought  was  never  quite  lost,  that  the  ascetic 
exercises  were  to  induce  spiritual  results.  The  com- 
mon means  were  fasting,  celibacy,  solitude,  refusing  to 
participate  in  the  ordinary  relationships  and  the  ordi- 
nary business  of  the  world,  inflicting  various  sorts  of 
penance;  and  ultimately  this  attitude  to  life  led  to 
monasticism,  as  it  was  known  in  the  mediaeval  Church. 
The  great  truth  in  all  ascetic  schemes  lies  on  the  sur- 
face, namely,  that  as  the  Greek  athlete  submitted  to  his 
askesis,  the  training  needed  to  produce  the  best  re- 
sults, so  there  is  needed  for  man  self-control,  disci- 
pline, to  make  the  best  of  his  powers. 

The  word  was  quite  naturally  acclimatised  in  Chris- 
tian thought,  though  the  word  itself  only  appears  once 
in  the  New  Testament,  where  it  is  used  as  a  verb  ^  in 
the  general  sense  of  exercising  or  working  on  oneself 
as  an  artificer  does  on  his  material.  But  other  refer- 
ences to  the  Greek  athletes  are  common,  as  in  such  a 
phrase  as  *  Every  man  that  striveth  for  the  mastery  is 
temperate  in  all  things.'  ^  where  St.  Paul  uses  an  illus- 
tration, which  was  well-known  to  his  readers,  taken 
from  the  races  of  the  Isthmian  games.  His  Corin- 
thian readers  knew  about  the  training  of  the  runner, 
and  how  candidates  had  to  submit  themselves  to  strict 
discipline,  a  chief  element  of  which  was  a  carefully  reg- 

*  Acts  xxiv.  16,  *  Herein  do  I  exercise  myself.* 
'  I  Cor.  ix.  25 — o  ayooviiofievoi. 


THE  ASCETIC  IDEAL— RESTRAINT    159 

ulated  temperance.  Epictetus  gives  some  of  the  rules 
of  Greek  athletic  training,  which  hold  good  to  some 
extent  in  the  most  scientific  physical  training  to-day — 
that  a  competitor  must  be  regular  and  orderly  in  all  his 
habits,  must  abstain  from  wine  and  confections,  must 
not  eat  at  random,  and  must  exercise  at  the  appointed 
time  in  heat  or  cold,  and  in  all  things  must  give  him- 
self up  entirely  to  his  training  master.  The  object  of 
the  athletic  askesis  was  to  produce  the  best  possible 
results  for  the  body,  which  was  so  rigidly  exercised; 
and  this  also  is  the  first  object  designed,  when  the  idea 
is  brought  into  the  mental  or  moral  sphere.  That  is 
to  say,  that  for  the  sake  of  these  powers  themselves,  to 
give  them  strength  and  perfection  of  nature,  self-denial 
is  required. 

Thus  we  come  to  the  first  point  where  the  two 
opposing  ideals  meet,  and  where  we  have  a  hint  of  a 
possible  synthesis,  that  restraint  is  needed  in  the  very 
interests  of  culture.  This  was  well  understood  in  the 
best  ethics  of  Greece.  In  Plato  and  Aristotle  it  is 
laid  down  that  man  must  acquire  the  habit  of  self- 
mastery,  if  he  is  to  live  truly.  Without  such  re- 
straint, proportion  and  harmony  in  life,  and  there- 
fore beauty  also,  would  be  lost.  Until  a  man  has 
learned  to  avoid  excess,  he  is  throwing  away  all  chance 
of  real  happiness,  and  is  meanwhile  ruining  his  best 
faculties.  There  can  be  no  true  culture  without  self- 
denial.  The  doctrine  of  moderation  springs  directly 
from  Greek  philosophy.  A  warning  against  excess 
was  usual  even  in  the  Epicurean  philosophy,  as  excess 
would  inevitably  ruin  the  end  aimed  at,  happiness. 
Quite  apart  from  the  question  of  happiness  and  pleas- 
ure, the  good  or  virtue  or  moral  excellence,  in  typical 


i6o  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

Greek  thinking,  lay  in  avoiding  extremes.  It  might 
be  called  the  very  central  thought  of  Aristotle's  Ethics 
that  virtue  is  moderation,  not  of  course  meaning  mod- 
eration in  indulging  in  anything  wrong,  but  that 
wrong  itself  means  either  excess  or  deficiency.  He 
defines  virtue  as  a  habit  or  trained  faculty  of  choice, 
the  characteristic  of  which  lies  in  observing  the  mean. 
'*  And  it  is  a  moderation,  firstly  inasmuch  as  it  comes 
in  the  middle  or  mean  between  two  vices,  one  on  the 
side  of  excess,  the  other  on  the  side  of  defect;  and 
secondly,  inasmuch  as,  while  these  vices  fall  short  of, 
or  exceed,  the  due  measure  in  feeling  and  in  action,  it 
finds  and  chooses  the  mean,  or  moderate  amount."  ^ 
This  is  a  true  principle  of  ethics,  as  can  be  seen  in 
almost  every  region  of  conduct.  Take  the  matter  of 
giving  money:  virtue  or  moderation  would  be  liber- 
ality; the  two  corresponding  vices  would  be  excess, 
which  is  prodigality,  and  deficiency,  which  is  mean- 
ness. Even  in  details  of  life  like  pleasant  amusing 
conversation,  Aristotle  would  call  wit  or  humour  mod- 
eration, undue  excess  of  which  would  be  buffoonery, 
and  undue  deficiency,  as  of  a  man  who  frowned  gloom- 
ily on  every  innocent  jest,  would  be  boorishness.  This 
great  principle  of  the  mean  is  in  keeping  with  the 
whole  Greek  ideal  of  culture,  as  the  harmonious  devel- 
opment of  every  part,  without  one-sidedness. 

In  every  art  in  its  highest  flights  there  must  be 
moderation,  the  recognition  of  the  limits  within  which 
it  must  move.  Exaggeration  ruins  effect.  It  is  this 
restraint  whicTi  gives  great  art  of  any  kind  its  appear- 
ance of  simplicity,  a  mastery  which  deceives  by  its 
apparent  ease.     Excess  or  defect  each  mean  failure. 

*  Nicomachean  Ethics,  ii.  6,  i6. 


THE  ASCETIC  IDEAL— RESTRAINT    i6i 

In  speech  or  writing,  where  emotions  are  worked  on, 
unrestrained  violence,  which  overleaps  the  modesty  of 
nature,  misses  the  mark  aimed  at — as  desperate  unreg- 
ulated vehemence  in  an  orator  only  creates  shame  or 
amusement  in  his  audience.  On  the  other  hand,  force 
without  exaggeration,  power  without  noise,  the  dex- 
terous ease  of  execution  which  hides  all  traces  of  ef- 
fort, never  fail  of  effect.  This  means  always  some 
form  of  self-limitation,  moderation,  the  practice  of  re- 
straint. Thus  culture  implies  restraint  in  every  sphere 
where  cultivation  is  applied;  and  restraint  is  for  the 
sake  of  culture. 

We  accept  this  in  education,  and  face  to  face  with 
the  extended  regions  of  knowledge  to-day  we  are 
forced  to  lay  even  increased  stress  on  some  forms  of 
self-denial.  The  student,  who  would  enter  into  truth, 
must  be  prepared  to  sacrifice  much,  and  give  up  grati- 
fications which  are  innocent  and  which  appeal  to  his 
tastes,  all  for  the  sake  of  the  subject  to  which  he  would 
bend  his  mind.  He  who  would  master  any  truth  must 
learn  what  a  jealous  mistress  he  serves.  The  ascetic 
principle,  which  declares  that  man  must  renounce  in 
order  to  gain,  is  not  a  strange  freak,  a  curiosity  in 
mental  pathology ;  but  is  a  principle  of  life  with  univer- 
sal application  all  along  the  line  of  life.  From  the  ath- 
lete to  the  student,  and  to  the  saint,  renunciation  is  an 
essential  feature  of  their  experience.  Professor  Tyn- 
dall,^  speaking  of  scientific  inductive  research,  said,  "  It 
requires  patient  industry,  and  a  humble  and  conscien- 
tious acceptance  of  what  nature  reveals.  The  first 
condition  of  success  is  an  honest  receptivity,  and  a  wil- 
lingness to  abandon  all  preconceived  notions,  how- 
*  Vide  Herbert  Spencer,  Education,  p.  45  (pop.  ed.). 


1 62  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

ever  cherished,  if  they  be  found  to  contradict  the  truth. 
Believe  me,  a  self-renunciation  which  has  something 
noble  in  it,  and  of  which  the  world  never  hears,  is  often 
enacted  in  the  private  experience  of  the  votary  of 
science." 

Further,  even  without  reference  to  what  a  man  must 
give  up  in  order  to  gain  any  height  in  life  or  study, 
it  has  to  be  noted  that  education  itseU  of  any  kind 
worth  the  name,  means  restraint.  In  all  schemes  of 
education  subjects  are  prescribed,  not  only  for  their 
own  sake,  but  for  the  mental  training  the  acquiring  of 
them  brings.  In  addition  to  the  particular  worth  they 
may  have  to  children  in  after  years,  there  is  the  worth 
they  have  as  discipline.  All  educationalists  take  this 
into  account  perhaps  first  of  all.  When  boys  are  set 
to  learn  Latin,  or  Mathematics,  or  Science,  the  first 
consideration  is  not  the  information  received  in  these 
departments  of  knowledge,  but  the  training  of  the 
mind.  Discipline  means  self-control,  bringing  the 
mind  under  command.  It  is  thus  not  confined  to  the 
physical  side  of  life,  but  is  necessary  throughout  the 
whole  area.  Intellect  is  only  raw  material,  and  needs 
to  be  shaped  and  polished  till  it  takes  an  edge.  Uncon- 
scious education  begins  very  early,  in  which  a  child 
learns  some  of  the  practical  limitations  and  restraints 
of  life ;  but  culture,  the  making  of  mind,  means  delib- 
erate effort,  a  persistent  attempt  after  complete  mental 
development. 

The  making  of  character  also  is  a  task  calling  for 
deliberate  effort,  and  for  the  wise  and  courageous  use 
of  the  instruments;  and  here  too  it  is  found  that,  as 
without  training  no  power  of  man  can  be  truly  devel- 
oped, so  without  self-denial  the  higher  life  of  man 


THE  ASCETIC  IDEAL— RESTRAINT    163 

would  be  impossible.  We  can  see  how  man  would 
cease  to  be  man  in  all  that  truly  makes  him  man,  if  he 
allowed  lower  appetites,  and  ambitions,  and  desires,  to 
run  riot.  Without  self-restraint  the  whole  order,  and 
beauty,  and  worth  of  life  are  destroyed.  A  well-bal-j 
anced  character  implies  an  all-round  effective  control] 
One  unbridled  passion  is  not  only  failure  at  a  single] 
point,  but  is  an  indication  of  failure  at  the  centre  also. 
In  the  best  there  are  evil  tendencies,  and  evil  desires, 
that  are  ever  clamant ;  so  that  in  the  ordinary  conduct 
of  life  the  habit  of  self-restraint  is  essential,  if  a 
straight  course  is  to  be  steered,  and  even  if  fatal  ship- 
wreck is  to  be  avoided.  A  weak,  undisciplined  nature, 
however  naturally  sweet  and  gentle  and  pure,  is  sure 
to  meet  some  day  a  concourse  of  circumstances,  or  an 
overwhelming  temptation,  which  will  end  in  moral  dis- 
aster. We  constantly  underestimate  the  power  of  a 
trained  and  restraining  will,  not  only  over  outside  cir- 
cumstances, but  also  over  the  inner  nature,  amending 
constitutional  defects,  checking  impulses,  impelling  to 
right  courses  of  action,  and  thus  altering  the  very 
character.  Like  every  other  faculty,  the  will  needs  to 
be  educated  and  strengthened  by  the  exercise  of 
itself. 

Of  all  the  moral  qualities  there  is  nothing  so  import- 
ant as  the  confirmed  habit  of  self-restraint,  and  it  is 
a  necessity,  unless  a  man  is  to  be  at  the  mercy  of  every 
wind  and  tide  that  tosses  him  at  will.  Our  natural 
appetites  and  desires  require  government.  Being  but 
blind  impulses,  they  need  to  be  controlled  and  guarded 
from  an  excess  which  would  injure  themselves,  as  well 
as  mar  the  complete  life.  Just  because  man  lives  on 
another  plane  from  the  beasts,    and    possesses    more 


i64  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

power  of  gratification,  he  cannot  leave  his  animal  in- 
stincts undirected.  For  one  thing,  they  grow  by  what 
they  feed  on,  until,  if  unrestricted,  they  would  usurp 
the  whole  life.  There  seems  no  limit  to  the  degen- 
eracy of  human  appetites ;  and  this  is  true  of  other  than 
mere  animal  passions,  true  of  desires  of  the  mind,  such 
as  ambition,  love  of  acquisition,  desire  for  honour. 
Indeed  every  capacity  of  our  nature,  however  high, 
may  become  over-stimulated,  or  depraved  in  its  tend- 
ency. The  very  powers  of  mind,  and  imagination, 
and  heart,  and  spirit,  which  are  proofs  of  man's  nobil- 
ity, can  become  degraded.  For  the  sake  of  these  pow- 
ers themselves,  for  their  true  culture  and  perfection  of 
working,  there  is  needed  an  alert  and  strenuous 
control. 

The  eternal  truth  of  asceticism  then  is  that  a  man 
has  to  master  himself,  has  to  bring  his  being  into  sub- 
jection to  the  laws  of  health,  and  to  the  higher  laws 
of  holiness;  that  discipline  is  needed  in  every  sphere; 
that  the  energies  and  appetites  must  be  subdued  and 
ruled.  Virtue  has  its  moral  worth  in  the  restraint 
exercised,  the  effort  put  forth.  /Meekness,  which  is 
due  to  sluggishness  of  soul  or  feebleness  of  mind,  is 
nothing  to  the  meekness  of  a  man  who  has  conquered 
himself,  who  has  controlled  his  passions,  and  put  his 
foot  on  the  neck  of  his  selfish  ambitions.  We  must 
bring  into  subjection  everything  that,  if  left  alone, 
would  subject  usj  There  is  a  price  for  all  this,  which 
a  man  must  pay  if  he  would  be  perfect,  if  he  would 
maintain  the  complete  integrity  of  his  being.  Disci- 
pline means  cost.  For  this  a  man  must  give  up,  go 
without,  renounce,  refuse  to  be  drawn  away  from  his 


THE  ASCETIC  IDEAL— RESTRAIN' 


purpose  by  any  allurement.  We  are  driven  to  use 
almost  the  very  language  of  the  ascetics,  when  we 
seriously  consider  duty  in  this  moral  region,  as  Huxley 
was  driven  to  use  similar  language,  starting  though 
he  did  from  the  scientific  principle  of  evolution.  The 
lower  must  be  forced  to  give  way  to  the  higher,  if 
there  is  to  be  any  moral  progress — that  is  the  first  prin- 
ciple of  a  true  man's  life;  and  that  is  just  another  way 
of  stating  the  duty  which  is  at  the  root  of  all  asceticism, 
of  denying  self  and  taking  up  a  cross,  i  The  way  to  life  \ 
is  ever  a  narrow  way.  Sincere  self-denial  is  an  essen-  ', 
tial  element  of  a  nobler  life,  without  even  taking  into 
account  the  sacrifices  for  the  sake  of  others  which 
comes  to  every  man.  To  choose  the  better  part  means 
turning  away  from  other  ways  that  please  the  carnal 
mind.  There  are  desires,  passions,  tempers,  that  must 
be  fought,  temptations  to  be  overcome.  Not  without 
watching,  and  prayer,  and  struggle,  can  the  soul  shake 
itself  free  from  earthly  clogs,  and  liberate  itself  from 
evil.  Only  by  patient  endurance  can  a  man  win  his 
soul.*  .'  It  is  the  man,  who  knows  himself  best,  who 
knows  that  he  must  keep  his  foot  on  himself,  in  things 
that  no  one  else  imagines,  perhaps  in  some  sting  of 
self-interest,  some  secret  thought,  some  wounded  pride, 
some  selfishness. )  Every  life  has  its  own  battlefield, 
where  the  lower  wars  against  the  higher.  In  that 
warfare  men  are  trained  in  character ;  for  only  through 
discipline  is  true  virtue  possible. 

With  all  its  faults,  therefore — and  these  faults,  as 
we  shall  see,  are  terrible — asceticism  even  in  its  most 
extreme  forms  was  at  least  based  on  a  solemn,  seriou? 
view  of  life,  and  manfully  accepted  life  as  discipline 

*Luke  xxi.  19,  R.  V. 


i66  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

It  at  least  knew  that  a  saint,  any  more  than  a  scholar 
in  his  sphere,  is  not  made  in  a  day;  and  it  set  its 
heart  on  sainthood.  Men  of  this  high  temper  turned 
in  disgust  from  the  levity,  and  frivolity,  and  corrup- 
tion of  the  world,  and  hated  the  sins  of  their  own 
hearts  and  lives,  as  well  as  the  sins  of  their  social 
environment,  and  in  a  stern  passion  for  holiness  did 
not  shrink  from  the  knife.  Asceticism,  which  was  not 
content  with  the  ordinary  opportunities  for  self-denial 
which  life  offers,  and  added  to  it  world-denial,  did  a 
grievous  wrong  to  the  world,  and  to  the  Church,  and 
even  in  the  long-run  to  the  ascetics'  own  best  Hfe; 
but  it  had  the  merit  of  being  in  earnest.  The  method 
was  a  mistake,  but  the  spirit,  which  at  first  inspired  it, 
was  noble  and  true.  There  is  a  puritan  heart  in  all 
real  religion,  an  austere  spirit  which  is  always  asso- 
ciated in  some  measure  with  a  lofty  ideal.  The  aus- 
terity is  not  formal,  or  assumed  for  its  own  sake,  but 
it  is  the  necessary  fruit  of  high  thought  and  noble  en- 
deavour. The  high  demands  the  sacrifice  of  the  low, 
if  only  to  maintain  its  own  existence.  The  man  who 
has  seen  the  vision  will  allow  nothing  to  come  in  the 
way,  no  craving  of  flesh,  no  desire  of  personal  pleas- 
ure; and  this  will  be  in  proportion  to  the  altitude 
of  the  standard.  Religion  thus  makes  life  strenuous. 
This  is  indeed  its  great  gift  to  life,  to  add  point,  and 
passion,  and  directness  to  its  aims,  a  gift  which  saves 
human  powers  from  decay.  It  gives  the  concentration 
needed  to  make  a  life  virile.  Without  the  self-re- 
straint, associated  with  the  name  of  Puritanism,  heroic 
life  is  impossible  either  for  a  man  or  a  nation. 

Something  of  the  same  stiffening  and  hardening  in- 
fluence is  needed  by  us  as  a  society  to-day,  in  our 


/ 


THE  ASCETIC  IDEAL— RESTRAINT    167 

flaccid,  ease-loving,  pleasure-seeking  time.  We  may 
bewail  in  sentiment  the  social  sins,  drunkenness,  gam- 
bling, vice ;  but  these  cannot  be  cured  by  mere  tinker- 
ing methods  of  legislation  or  of  education.  We  need 
a  breath  of  the  old  spirit  of  earnestness  to  sweep 
through  our  midst.  No  process  of  self-culture,  how- 
ever wide  its  programme,  which  neglects  the  moral 
needs  of  men,  will  avail  much  by  itself.  If  we  are  to 
be  saved  from  these  social  sins,  and  saved  from  the 
inevitable  national  weakness  which  they  mean,  it  must 
come  from  within,  from  a  renewed  ideal  of  duty.  We 
need  Puritanism,  made  patient  and  made  tender  by 
love,  driving  its  power  not  into  forms  of  repression 
but  into  channels  of  service.  Our  Lord's  word  must 
come  with  fresh  force  to  us,  to  deny  ourselves,  to  bend 
to  His  yoke,  and  accept  the  full  consequences  of  our 
faith. 

Any  self-culture,  which  is  only  a  subtle  form  of  self- 
indulgence,  stands  condemned  before  the  high  passion 
of  this  other  ideal,  that  enters  into  something  of  the 
mystery  of  the  cross.  We  feel  instinctively  that,  in  spite 
of  all  mistakes,  those  who  have  renounced  the  world 
and  its  enticements,  who  have  trod  with  bleeding  feet 
the  narrow  way,  who  have  denied  themselves  all  in- 
dulgence, have  made  a  nobler  choice,  than  those  who 
have  never  burned  for  perfection,  and  never  known 
the  patience  of  the  saints,  but  have  weakly  given  in  to 
every  impulse,  and  sought  gratification  in  every  easy 
pleasure.  If  these  two  methods  exhausted  the  alterna- 
tives, if  the  choice  were  confined  to  these,  every  true 
and  earnest  man  would  be  compelled  to  accept  even 
the  mutilation  of  life,  rather  than  the  degradation  of 
life;  and  sometimes  indeed  it  has  seemed  to  men  that 


l68  CULTUkE  AND  RESTRAINT 

there  was  no  other  choice,  and  at  such  periods  the 
noblest  spirits  are  to  be  found  among  the  fanatics. 
There  have  been  times  when  a  serious  man  was  shut 
up  to  some  form  of  abstinence,  times  even  when,  as 
Dean  Church  says  in  his  St.  Anslem,  **  That  which  of 
itself  presented  itself  to  the  thoughts  of  a  man  in 
earnest,  wishing  not  only  to  do  right,  but  to  do  the  best 
he  could  to  fulfil  God's  purpose  and  his  own  calling 
by  self-improvement,  was  the  monastic  profession." 
Whole  periods  of  the  history  of  the  Church  and  of 
modern  Europe  will  remain  out  of  perspective  to  us, 
and  the  very  system  of  monasticism  will  look  to  us  as 
a  sort  of  mysterious  madness,  unless  we  appreciate  that 
fact.  Fanaticism  may  be,  as  Lamartine  called  it  when 
speaking  of  the  Girondists,  a  delirium  of  virtue;  but 
its  excesses  are  often  due  to  the  previous  reign  of  evil, 
due  to  the  deadweight  of  the  world's  enmity  not  only 
against  God  but  against  man's  best  life. 

To-day  there  is  a  danger  of  ascetic  reaction  from 
the  practical  materialism  of  modern  life.  It  is  a  dan- 
ger, because  it  is  ever  tempted  to  put  the  emphasis  in 
the  wrong  place;  but  some  kind  of  reaction  seems  in- 
evitable. Certainly,  self-denial  of  some  sort  is  nec- 
essary as  a  protest  against  our  modern  gospel  of  com- 
fort, as  if  man's  chief  end  were  to  have  plenty  of 
victuals.  Better  the  sternness  and  rigour  of  Puritan- 
ism, than  the  soft,  flaccid  accommodation  to  evil  which 
comes  so  natural  in  an  easy  civilisation.  Brought  face 
to  face  with  some  of  the  evils  of  our  city  life,  with 
luxury  and  misery  side  by  side,  and  with  the  expe- 
rience of  the  emptiness  of  so  many  worldly  ideals,  the 
stern  word  to  flee  these  things  seems  to  come  to  us. 
At  least  we  ought  to  be  alive  to  the  fact  that  with  our 


THE  ASCETIC  IDEAL— RESTRAINT    169 

materialistic  ideals  of  life  we  are  preparing  for  another 
protest  in  the  name  of  the  soul,  which  refuses  to  be 
submerged  by  the  details  of  living.  When  so  much  of 
our  life  is  irreligious  and  Godless,  when  so  much  stress 
is  laid  on  the  outside  of  life,  when  the  common  cult 
of  the  day  is  that  a  man  should  follow  his  impulses 
without  restraint,  when  evil  is  condoned  as  natural, 
and  unearthly  ideals  are  mocked  at  as  superstition, 
men  who  are  susceptible  to  spiritual  influences  are 
tempted  to  advocate  and  practise  the  opposite  as  pro- 
test. Perhaps  even  the  monk  is  not  such  an  extinct 
species  of  the  human  family  as  Carlyle  ^  thought,  since 
the  great  motive  which  led  to  monasticism  lies  deep 
in  human  nature.  It  would  probably  surprise  some  to 
know  how  deep  and  wide  is  this  counter-current, 
alongside  of  the  more  apparent  stream  of  modern  life. 
Even  in  Protestant  countries  there  has  of  late  years 
been  a  remarkable  growth  of  monastic  life,  or  at  least 
of  kindred  manifestations.  "  Among  other  strange 
phenomena  of  the  waning  century,  we  see  once  more 
rising  among  us,  as  if  by  enchantment,  the  religious 
orders  of  the  Middle  Ages;  Benedictines,  Carmelites, 
Dominicans;  houses  of  monks  and  nuns,  to  which 
American  and  English  ladies  and  gentlemen  are  once 
more  gathering  as  of  old,  flying  no  longer  from  a 
world  01  violence  or  profligacy,  but  from  a  world  of 
emptiness  and  spiritual  death."  ^  The  increase  of  so- 
called  High-Church  principles  is  only  an  evidence 
of  revolt  against  low  ideals,  a  blundering  revolt  if  we 
like,  but  a  very  real  one:  the  emphasis  on  fasting,  re- 
treats, and  the  contemplative  life  generally,  the  growth 

^  Past  and  Present,  Bk.  II.  ch.  i. 
J.  A.  Froude,  Short  Studies,  vol.  iii.  p.  6  (1888). 


170  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

of  brotherhoods  and  sisterhoods,  only  follow  the  line 
which  history  prepares  us  to  expect. 

We  must  sympathise  with  all  serious  attempts  to 
purify  life;  with  everything  which  betokens  a  desire 
after  Godliness,  even  though  its  form  may  seem  to  us 
to  be  mistaken  or  dangerous ;  with  every  high  endeav- 
our to  oppose,  in  Huxley's  phrase,  the  cosmic  process 
at  every  step,  in  order  to  give  the  ethical  process  a 
chance.  We  must  sympathise  with  all  such,  if  we 
have  ever  thrilled  to  the  high  passion  oi  St.  Paul,  when 
he  wrote  his  burning  words,  "  Mortify  your  members 
which  are  on  earth;  fornication,  uncleanness,  passion, 
evil  desire,  covetousness ;  for  which  things'  sake  the 
wrath  of  God  cometh  on  the  children  of  disobedience, 
in  the  which  ye  also  walked  some  time,  when  ye  lived 
in  them ;  but  now  ye  also  put  off  all  these."  ^  Often  we 
must  have  longed  for  some  touch  of  Puritanism  to 
move  our  modern  life,  and  make  it  more  strong  and 
pure  and  sweet.  And  it  will.  The  high  heart  of  man 
will  not  rest  for  ever  in  the  deeps  of  thought  and  deed, 
but  will  reassert  itself  somehow.  We  must  lay  Qur 
account  to  the  fact  that  the  nature  of  man  has  not 
changed,  and  the  needs  of  life  are  pretty  much  what 
they  have  been  throughout  the  centuries.  In  a  very 
real  sense  every  good  man  has  to  practise  some  sort 
of  asceticism ;  he  must  give  up,  if  he  would  be  true  to 
his  ideal.  It  is  a  false  culture  which  gives  free  play  to 
every  instinct,  and  ends,  as  it  must,  in  making  life  a 
wilderness,  not  a  garden.  The  very  name  culture  im- 
plies the  hoe  and  the  pruning-knife,  for  the  perfect 
cultivation  of  life's  acre;  as  in  gardening  there  must 
be  the  suppression  of  the  weeds  to  give  the  flowers 

*  Col.  iii.  5. 


THE  ASCETIC  IDEAL— RESTRAINT    171 

room.  In  every  true  life  there  is  sacrifice,  struggle, 
things  to  forsake  in  obedience  to  the  heavenly  vision, 
at  the  call  of  the  higher  nature.  When  there  is  a  con- 
flict between  a  man's  tastes  and  his  duty — and  these 
conflicts  come  to  all — he  must  refuse  the  cravings 
which  his  conscience  tells  him  to  be  lower. 

The  Christian  Church  has  often  played  into  the 
hands  of  enemies  by  interpreting  the  command  not 
to  love  the  world  *  as  the  denial  of  the  work,  and 
duties,  and  obligations  which  devolve  upon  men,  the 
ordinary  activities,  and  relationships,  and  business 
which  men  transact  for  the  upkeep  of  life;  but  there 
is  a  true  sense  in  which  the  command  applies.  The 
world  is  a  much  less  definite  thing  than  that  inter- 
pretation makes  out,  even  less  definite  than  Huxley's 
cosmic  process,  but  it  is  as  real  as  ourselves.  How 
indefinite  it  is  we  see  when  we  try  to  make  a  list  of 
the  things  we  would  call  worldly.  We  cannot  draw  a 
line,  and  say  about  every  occupation,  or  amusement,  or 
manner  of  living:  This  is  Christian,  and  that  is  not; 
This  is  worldly,  and  that  is  not.  And  yet  we  know 
what  worldliness  is,  and  if  we  are  sensitive  to  spiritual 
suggestion  we  can  recognise  it  when  we  see  it.  As  a 
general  definition,  it  stands  to  us  for  the  great  mass  of 
things  that  organise  themselves  against  God.  It  is  a 
spirit  of  enmity,  all  that  in  our  environment  is  against 
the  life  of  the  soul,  the  lower  principle  that  stubbornly 
resists  the  higher,  the  deadweight  of  evil  or  of  oppo- 
sition to  good,  the  inertia  that  drags  itself  against 
every  upward  pull.  The  spirit  of  the  world  seems  a 
vague,  meaningless  term,   but  it  becomes  an  awful 

1  John  ii.  15. 


172  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

reality  to  the  man  who  has  run  counter  to  it.  If  it 
were  just  one  thing,  or  one  set  of  things,  which  we 
could  brand  as  evil,  and  then  strenuously  avoid;  if  it 
meant  just  one  earnest  protest  and  defiance,  the  prob- 
lem would  be  easy.  But  the  foe  is  insidious ;  it  evades 
the  point  of  the  sword,  and  changes  shape  and  colour ; 
and  the  fight  is  life-long.  If  one  were  to  gibbet  some 
practice  or  habit  as  the  enemy  of  soul,  and  made  us 
look  at  the  hateful  thing  till  the  memory  of  it  and 
the  hate  of  it  burned  into  our  brain,  and  then 
summed  up  all  moral  duty  in  the  command  to  flee  from 
that,  it  would  be  an  easy  task;  but  he  might  be  only 
gibbeting  his  world,  and  not  coming  within  a  thousand 
miles  of  what  our  world  means,  and  where  the  fight  is 
hot  and  fierce  in  our  corner  of  the  field. 

This  is  one  of  the  serious  faults  of  all  external 
forms  of  morality,  such  as  asceticism  has  commonly 
signified,  crystallising  evil  into  one  or  two  typical  sin- 
ful passions.  The  problem  is  far  more  complicated 
than  such  methods  can  touch.  This  conspiracy  against 
the  regal  claims  of  the  soul,  which  we  sum  up  in  the 
word  "  world,"  is  the  secular  spirit,  diflferent  at  differ- 
ent times  and  for  different  people,  the  great  fascinatmg 
scheme  of  things  regarded  as  apart  from  Gk)d,  the 
inert  but  powerful  antagonism  of  matter  against  spirit, 
of  sense  against  soul,  of  social  conventions  and  preju- 
dices against  the  new  and  the  high.  In  every  life, 
and  in  every  scene  of  history,  there  are  two  spirits 
contending  for  masterdom,  and  one  of  them  in 
various  guises  is  the  world.  It  may  be  organised 
force,  as  it  was  to  the  early  Church,  force  materialised 
in  the  Roman  Empire  with  the  Emperor  enthroned  as 
God;  it  may  be  self-indulgence  and  countless  appeals 


THE  ASCETIC  IDEAL— RESTRAINT    173 

to  the  lower  instincts,  as  in  every  pagan  and  semi- 
pagan  civilisation ;  it  may  be  vulgar  mammon-worship, 
as  perhaps  with  us,  the  sleek  gospel  of  material 
comfort. 

To  the  individual  in  his  particular  sphere  of  work, 
it  is  the  conspiracy  of  conventions  and  precedents, 
that  keep  him  from  realising  his  own  highest  ideal ;  to 
the  artist  the  temptation  to  paint  pot-boilers  for  a  Phil- 
istine market,  since  nobody  seems  to  want  anything 
else;  the  author  to  write  for  money,  or  pander  to  the 
taste  of  the  crowd;  the  statesman  to  sacrifice  principle 
to  expediency;  the  preacher  to  speak  claptrap  to  tickle 
the  ears,  rather  than  the  dearly  bought  spiritual  truth 
to  move  hearts  to  nobler  life.  In  every  sphere,  and 
every  calling,  and  every  life,  there  are  the  two  voices, 
and  the  tug-of-war  for  masterdom,  sense  impinging  on 
soul,  the  ideal  valorously  struggling  with  the  conven- 
tional ;  duty,  "  the  stern  daughter  of  the  voice  of  God," 
against  pleasure  with  her  siren  song.  It  is  an  atti- 
tude, a  spirit — not  the  flesh  or  the  eye  or  life  as  such, 
but  the  lust  of  flesh  or  eye,  and  the  pride  of  life.  The 
definition  may  be  vague,  but  we  know  what  the 
world  means  to  us,  if  we  are  honest  with  ourselves; 
we  know  the  weak  spot  where  it  strikes  home  to  our 
heart;  as  we  know  what  Wordsworth  meant  when  he 
used  the  same  word — 

The  world  is  too  much  with  us,  late  and  soon, 
Getting  and  spending,  we  lay  waste  our  powers. 

Whatever  keeps  us  from  being  our  best  self,  what- 
ever is  dwarfing  us  from  our  true  stature,  is  the  place 
where  we  need  to  apply  askesis,  the  discipline  of  a 


174  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

self-controlled  will.  The  ascetic  ideal  has  an  element 
of  eternal  truth,  without  which  life  can  have  no  true 
culture. 

George  Herbert,  from  his  birth,  and  breeding,  and 
tastes,  had  some  of  the  struggle  implied  in  all  renun- 
ciation, after  he  gave  up  worldly  hopes  at  court  to 
serve  as  a  humble  servant  in  the  Temple.  He  de- 
scribes the  natural  craving  of  human  instincts  for  full 
satisfaction,  kicking  against  the  pricks  of  duty;  and 
he  reveals  the  ultimate  result  which  made  sacrifice 
easy.  This  he  does  with  wonderful  art  in  The  Collar, 
the  quaint  title  implying  the  restraint.  It  brings  out 
the  first  instinctive  desire  of  nature  for  full  and  free 
culture,  and  at  the  same  time  suggests  the  higher  im- 
pulse which  holds  it  in  check.  The  place  and  power 
of  the  ascetic  ideal,  in  face  of  the  dominant  appeal  for 
self-expression,  are  indicated  in  such  subtle  and  yet 
forceful  manner  in  the  poem  that  we  cannot  refrain 
from  quoting  it,  as  it  states  the  case  for  repression  as 
many  pages  of  prose  might  fail  to  do.  Just  when  the 
argument  for  the  world's  joy  seems  complete,  there 
bursts  out  the  imperial  note  of  the  higher  nature  silenc- 
ing the  voice  of  the  lower. 

I  struck  the  board,  and  cried,  "  No  more; 

I  will  abroad. 
What!    shall  I  ever  sigh  and  pine? 
My  lines  and  life  are  free;    free  as  the  road, 
Loose  as  the  wind,  as  large  as  store. 

Shall  I  be  still  in  suit? 
Have  I. no  harvest  but  a  thorn 
To  let  me  blood,  and  not  restore 
What  I  have  lost  with  cordial  fruit? 

Sure  there  was  wine 
Before  my  sighs  did  dry  it;    there  was  com 


THE  ASCETIC  IDEAL— RESTRAINT    175 

Before  my  tears  did  drown  it. 

Is  the  year  only  lost  to  me? 

Have  I  no  bays  to  crown  it, 

No  flowers,  no  garlands  gay?    All  blasted. 

All  wasted? 
Not  so,  my  heart;   but  there  is  fruit, 

And  thou  hast  hands. 
Recover  all  thy  sigh-blown  age 
On  double  pleasures ;    leave  thy  cold  dispute 
Of  what  is  fit,  and  not ;    forsake  thy  cage. 

Thy  rope  of  sands, 
Which  petty  thoughts  have  made,  and  made  to  thee 
Good  cable  to  enforce  and  draw, 

And  be  thy  law. 
While  thou  didst  wink  and  wouldst  not  see. 

Away!    take  heed: 

I  will  abroad. 
Call  in  thy  death's-head  there:   tie  up  thy  fears. 

He  that  forbears 

To  suit  and  serve  his  need 
Deserves  his  load." 

But  as  I  raved,  and  grew  more  fierce  and  wild 

At  every  word, 
Methought  I  heard  one  calling,  "  Child !  " 
And  I  replied,  "  My  Lord ! " 


VII 

THE  ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  ASCETICISM 

WHEN  we  think  of  how  far  the  ascetic 
ideal  was  pushed  in  the  Church,  the 
extent  to  which  various  kinds  of  mor- 
tification reached,  self-torture  carried 
to  its  furthest  extreme,  the  huge  spread  of  the  mo- 
nastic system,  we  wonder  how  such  forms  of  devotion 
could  come  from  the  sweet,  natural  piety  and  gentle, 
loving  spirit  of  the  Christian  faith.  In  the  earliest  age 
the  strong,  simple  faith  and  the  deep  joy  made  life 
easy;  so  that  there  is  something  of  the  wonder  of 
spring  about  the  early  Church,  the  miracle  of  effortless 
growth,  the  rich  exuberance  of  life,  the  entrancing 
beauty  of  simplicity  and  naturalness.  The  birth  of  the 
Church  was  like  the  birth  of  the  year,  with  the  exhil- 
aration and  graceful  ease  of  spring.  In  the  Acts  of 
the  Apostles  we  do  not  find  the  same  strenuous  atti- 
tude of  protest  against  the  world,  which  afterwards  is 
noticed  in  the  Church.  To  go  from  the  atmosphere 
of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  to  that  of  the  Church 
Councils  is  like  going  from  the  freshness  of  spring  to 
the  heat  and  burden  of  summer.  In  the  early  Church, 
with  the  dew  of  her  youth  on  her,  we  notice  an  ease 
and  a  naturalness  which  we  miss  in  subsequent  stages 
of  history.  Life  was  pervaded  with  a  wonderful  joy, 
and  was  not  spoiled  by  anything  sour,  or  morose,  or 
melancholy.     Why  should  they  be  sad,  when    Christ 

176 


\  OF 

ORIGIN  OF  ASCETICISM^^^lf  T^'^ 

had  come,  and  was  their  risen,  and  ascended,  and  liv- 
ing Saviour?  There  was  nothing  strained,  or  ascetic, 
or  unnatural  in  their  manner  of  life.  In  the  flush  and 
fervour  of  their  first  love,  life  adjusted  itself  easily  and 
sweetly.  Take  such  a  picture  as  is  seen  in  these 
words,  "  Day  by  day,  continuing  stedfastly  with  one 
accord  in  the  temple,  and  breaking  bread  at  home,  they 
did  take  their  food  with  gladness  and  singleness  of 
heart,  praising  God,  and  having  favour  with  all  peo- 
ple."^ The  natural  human  virtues  and  the  common 
social  joys  flourished  in  their  united  brotherhood;  and 
the  common  things  of  every  day  were  done  with  a 
sweet  and  cheerful  grace.  The  disciples'  faith  brought 
an  exultant  sense  of  mastery  over  life,  and  of  victory 
over  the  world;  and  so  love  and  the  fruits  of  love 
abounded.  It  was,  perhaps,  too  idyllic  a  mood  to  last, 
and  it  certainly  did  not  last.  The  Church  of  the  Apos- 
tles became  the  Church  of  the  Martyrs.  The  Chris- 
tian converts,  who  only  asked  to  be  allowed  to  live 
their  gracious  lives  of  love  and  service  in  peace,  had 
to  go  through  the  fire.  The  Church  lost  its  early 
gladness,  and  sometimes  even  its  singleness  of  heart. 

Apart  from  times  of  distress  and  persecution,  the 
Christian  life  generally  became  more  of  a  struggle,  as 
the  essential  opposition  to  pagan  life  unfolded  itself. 
They  were  given  as  one  of  the  tasks  of  religion  to  keep 
themselves  unspotted  from  the  world,  to  conform  to  the 
law  of  holiness,  to  regulate  their  lives  by  higher  mo- 
tives, and  restraints,  and  sanctions.  To  the  early 
Christians  the  gulf  fixed  between  the  faith  and  the 
ordinary  pagan  life  was  greater  than  could  possibly  be 
to-day,  in  a  civilisation  softened,  and  to  some  extent 

'  Acts  ii.  46,  R.  V. 


178  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

formed,  by  Christianity.  The  world  stood  to  them  for 
implacable  enmity  against  God,  and  sleepless,  unabated 
protest  became  the  necessary  attitude ;  so  that  the  tem- 
per of  the  Church  was  hardened  in  fibre,  as  it  stood 
against  the  prevailing  corruptions.  The  garments 
could  be  kept  clean,  and  hearts  remain  unspotted,  only 
by  sore  struggle.  To  understand  the  beginnings  of 
the  ascetic  system,  that  seems  so  divorced  from  the 
thought  and  example  of  Christ,  we  need  to  transplant 
ourselves  in  imagination  to  the  environment  of  the 
early  Church,  though  what  the  pagan  environment 
was  at  its  worst  it  is  happily  impossible  for  us  even  to 
imagine. 

It  is  a  common  idea  to  assume  that  the  sort  of  life, 
briefly  pictured  in  the  words  we  quoted  from  the  Acts 
of  the  Apostles,  is  a  feature  of  pagan  life  rather  than 
Christian.  In  books  innumerable  it  is  set  forth  that 
this  sweet,  natural  joy  of  living,  with  its  instinctive 
mirth,  and  its  social  pleasures,  and  its  innocence  of 
heart,  is  the  typical  pagan  life;  whereas  the  typical 
Christian  life  is  bloodless,  and  unnatural,  and  courts 
sorrow,  and  worships  death.  This  is  the  groundwork 
on  which  many  of  our  poets  and  writers  create  their 
contrasts ;  and  many  poetic  tears  are  shed  that  the  pale 
Galilean  should  have  swept  from  the  world  Apollo 
and  the  beautiful  gods.  The  description  of  pagan  life 
as  a  genial,  sprightly,  poetic  thing  is  false  to  fact,  and 
false  to  history  except  a  very  surface  reading  of  history. 
When  the  Christian  faith  entered  the  world,  that 
youthful  stage  of  paganism  had  long  passed ;  and  we 
find  a  corruption  and  shame  of  life,  a  despair  of  truth, 
a  colossal  selfishness,  and  a  complete  breakdown  of 
the  sanctions  of  morality  which  keep  society  together. 


ORIGIN  OF  ASCETICISM  179 

The  condition  of  human  society  in  Europe  at  the  time 
is  beyond  description,  though  outwardly  social  order 
was  maintained  by  the  strong  hand  of  the  Roman 
Empire.  It  is  not  only  that  the  grossest  evils  were 
rampant,  but  that  the  very  source  of  life  itself,  even 
religion,  was  turned  into  a  corrupt  influence. 

If  by  typical  we  mean  what  a  system  results  in,  the 
ultimate  life  which  is  its  outcome,  it  seems  a  monstrous 
absurdity  to  draw  the  contrast  between  the  pagan  and 
the  Christian  life,  to  which  we  refer.  If  we  want  to 
know  the  typical  pagan  life  of  the  time  of  the  early 
Church,  we  must  find  it  not  in  such  dreams  of  groves 
and  nymphs  about  which  our  writers  rave ;  we  will  find 
it  in  the  terrible  indictment  of  St.  Paul  in  the  first 
chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans ;  we  find  it  writ- 
ten in  terms  of  history  in  the  annals  of  Tacitus,  and 
in  terms  of  morals  in  the  satires  of  Juvenal.  We  will 
find  it  in  the  hopelessness  of  truth  which  oppressed 
the  best  of  men,  the  corruption  of  life  which  came 
from  the  breakdown  of  the  pagan  faith,  in  the  oppres- 
sion and  sorrow  of  the  people,  in  the  shame  of  courts, 
in  the  despair  of  philosophy.  Philosophers  had  de- 
generated into  rhetoricians.  In  the  lecture-rooms 
moral  good  and  evil  were  as  counters  in  an  intellectual 
game,  with  no  practical  bearing  on  life.  The  keenest 
of  Lucian's  satires  were  levelled  at  the  philosophers, 
for  the  infamy  of  their  lives,  as  well  as  the  futility  of 
their  hair-splitting  speculations;  and  next  to  them  his 
bitter  sarcasm  struck  at  the  priests  of  the  pagan  re- 
ligion, who  made  the  sacred  Mysteries  the  grossest  of 
orgies.  We  have  endless  evidence  of  the  degradation 
of  religion  itself  from  sources  that  are  not  Christian, 
to  corroborate  the  testimony  of  men  like  St.  Augus- 


i8o  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

tine,  who  writes,  "  I  myself,  when  a  young  man,  used 
sometimes  to  go  to  the  sacrilegious  entertainments  and 
spectacles ;  I  saw  the  priests  raving  in  religious  excite- 
ment, and  heard  the  choristers;  I  took  pleasure  in  the 
shameful  games  which  were  celebrated  in  the  honour 
of  gods  and  goddesses,  of  the  virgin  Ccelestis,  and 
Berecynthia,  the  mother  of  all  the  gods.  And  on  the 
day  consecrated  to  her  purification,  there  were  sung 
before  her  couch  productions  so  obscene  and  filthy  to 
the  ear — I  do  not  say  of  the  mother  of  the  gods,  but 
of  the  mother  of  any  senator  or  honest  man — nay,  so 
impure  that  not  even  the  mother  of  the  foul-mouthed 
players  themselves  could  have  formed  one  of  the  audi- 
ence." ^  When  religion  was  corrupt,  the  very  foun- 
tain of  life  was  corrupted  at  its  source;  and  the  state 
of  society  was  such  that  the  facts  could  not  be  written 
in  English  and  need  to  be  left,  as  Gibbon  declared  he 
left  all  the  licentious  passages  in  writing  his  history, 
"  in  the  obscurity  of  a  learned  language."  ^  Suetonius, 
Seneca,  and  every  pagan  writer  who  touches  at  all  on 
the  social  conditions,  reveal  the  moral  putrefaction  that 
existed.  In  the  course  of  an  argument  about  the  lend- 
ing of  money,  Seneca  throws  out  some  features  of  the 
social  state  in  dark  silhouette  by  a  casual  illustration 
in  which  he  says  that  gentlewomen  reckon  their  age 
not  by  the  number  of  their  years  but  by  the  number 
of  their  husbands,  and  that  chastity  was  so  rare  that 
it  was  counted  only  as  an  argument  of  deformity.  The 
chapter  ^  is  a  lurid  condemnation  of  the  state  of  affairs, 
more    convincing    because    it    is    casually    introduced 

^  Augustine,  Civ.  Dei,  ii.  4. 

'Gibbon,  Memoirs  of  My  Life  (ed.  1900),  p.  231. 

'  Seneca,  De  Ben.,  iii,  17. 


ORIGIN  OF  ASCETICISM  i8i 

merely  as  an  illustration  of  another  point.  Mr.  Lecky 
in  his  History  of  European  Morals  records  a  simple 
fact  when  he  says  that  the  pages  of  Suetonius  are  an 
eternal  witness  of  abysses  of  depravity,  hideous  and 
intolerable  cruelty,  and  hitherto  unimagined  extrava- 
gances of  nameless  lust.  There  was  a  gangrene  in  the 
heart  of  society.  Matthew  Arnold  expresses  the  truth 
in  his  strong  lines, 

On  that  hard  pagan  world  disgust 
And  secret  loathing  fell. 
Deep  weariness  and  sated  lust 
Made  human  life  a  hell. 

A  protest  in  the  name  of  the  soul  was  bound  to  be 
made;  and  made  it  was,  even  before  Christianity. 
"  The  ancient  world  had  arrived,  by  all  the  routes  of 
its  complicated  development,  at  the  bitterest  criticism 
of,  and  disgust  at,  its  own  existence,'*  ^  The  protest 
was  a  counsel  of  despair,  and  took  the  form  of  some 
sort  of  asceticism;  for  men  felt  that  the  only  policy 
open  to  them  was  to  cut  connection  with  the  world, 
which  was  so  evil.  There  are,  as  we  shall  see,  specula- 
tive and  philosophic  reasons  why  asceticism  took  such 
strong  hold  of  the  world  in  so  many  different  coun- 
tries and  different  periods;  but  the  practical  motive  is 
ever  the  recognition  of  evil,  which  becomes  intoler- 
able, and  which  drives  men  into  violent  protest.  The 
complete  ascetic  separation  from  the  world  is  not 
peculiarly  Christian — in  fact  it  is  not  Christian  at  all. 
Rather,  in  essence,  it  is  opposed  to  the  spirit  of  Chris- 
tianity, which  calls  on  believers  to  be  leaven  to  leaven 
the  whole  lump  of  society,  salt  to  keep  the  earth  pure, 

^Harnack,  History  of  Dogma  (Eng.  Trans.),  vol.  iii.  p.  123. 


i82  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

light  to  lighten  the  world.  It  is  indeed  the  pagan 
remedy  for  the  pagan  sins,  but,  as  we  must  acknowl- 
edge, it  was  a  very  natural  remedy  for  earnest  men  to 
adopt.  It  is  found  in  other  religions — in  Buddhism, 
for  example,  where  it  is  a  fundamental  principle  of  the 
religion.  In  Greece,  though  it  was  alien  to  the  whole 
Greek  temperament,  the  followers  of  Pythagoras  com- 
bined asceticism  of  Hfe  with  mysticism  of  creed;  and 
the  Cynics  have  been  called  the  monks  of  Stoicism, 
probably  because  they  really  put  into  practice  the  prin- 
ciples of  contempt  for  luxury  and  comfort,  and  absti- 
nence from  pleasure,  which  were  often  only  items  of 
creed  with  Stoics.  Even  among  the  Jews,  to  whom 
for  other  reasons  than  with  the  Greeks  it  was  even 
more  alien,  we  find  such  manifestations  as  that  of  the 
Essenes,  who  lived  in  renunciation  of  the  world. 
Pliny,  referring  to  the  growth  of  the  Essenes,  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  they  renounced  marriage,  and  that 
therefore  the  sect  could  only  increase  by  making  con- 
verts, accounts  for  their  numbers  by  the  repentant  dis- 
gust which  life  itself  breeds  in  men.^ 

It  was  natural,  when  men  were  touched  by  the  new 
passion  for  purity  which  Christ  brought,  that  they 
should  be  filled  even  more  with  disgust  and  loathing. 
Called  out  from  an  environment  like  that  which  we 
have  indicated,  and  with  the  personal  struggle  intensi- 
fied by  their  own  habits,  and  education,  and  inclina- 
tions, we  may  well  expect  a  certain  austerity  of  tone, 
which  would  justify  even  forms  of  violent  protest.  To 
escape  from  the  constant  enticement  of  the  world  in 
which  they  were  compelled  to  live,  might  easily  seem 
to  a  man  the  only  complete  way  of  attaining  mastery 

*  Tarn  fcecunda  illis  alioriim  vita  pcunitentia  est. 


ORIGIN  OF  ASCETICISM  183 

over  self.  When  we  think  of  the  whole  situation  of 
men,  who  were  set  to  keep  themselves  unspotted  from 
evil,  we  are  not  surprised  to  find  early  in  the  history 
of  the  Church,  ascetic  exercises  creeping  in,  due 
chiefly  to  the  necessary  protest  against  the  terrible 
evils  of  pagan  life.  The  process  was  slow  and  unequal 
in  diiferent  places,  but  it  was  sure.  In  the  earliest 
records  of  the  sub-apostolic  age  we  see  how  the  law 
gradually  came  to  mean,  not  the  law  of  love,  working 
itself  out  amid  all  the  relations  of  life,  but  the  com- 
mandments of  ascetic  holiness.  We  trace  the  slight 
beginnings  of  this,  even  in  such  an  early  record  as  the 
Didache,  the  Teaching  of  the  Apostles. 

Possibly  the  stage  of  austere  asceticism  was  an  in- 
evitable one  in  the  history  of  the  Church;  and  cer- 
tainly the  austere  view  of  life  was  a  necessity  at  the 
time.  Before  the  Christian  faith  could  lay  hold  of  the 
world  for  its  own  high  mission,  it  had  to  begin  with 
negative  work;  it  had  to  uproot  the  heathenish  vices, 
and  brand  sin  as  hateful  in  the  conscience  of  men.  This 
involved  the  risk  of  the  negative  tendency  being  ex- 
aggerated, as  indeed  turned  out  to  be  the  case,  but 
the  one-sidedness  of  the  ascetic  tendency  was  a  natural 
phenomenon.  The  disgust  of  pagan  life  led,  as  was 
to  be  expected,  to  extravagances;  but  before  spiritual 
life  was  possible  the  long  unclean  list,  which  St.  Paul 
gives  more  than  once  in  his  Epistles,  had  to  be  put 
off  by  Christian  converts.  At  any  and  every  cost  they 
had  to  mortify  the  evil  passions  and  practices,  in  which 
they  had  also  walked.  Self-denial  was  the  first  step, 
and  it  was  natural  enough  that  the  idea  should  grow 
in  men,  who  were  face  to  face  with  the  corruption  and 
depravity  of  pagan  society,  that  the  only  course  open 


i84  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

to  them  was  as  complete  separation  from  the  world  as 
possible.  It  is  not  enough  to  dismiss  a  great  system, 
which  grew  to  such  proportions  as  Monasticism  did, 
by  Gibbon's  explanation :  ''  These  unhappy  exiles  from 
social  life  were  impelled  by  the  dark  and  implacable 
genius  of  superstition.  Their  mutual  resolution  was 
supported  by  the  example  of  millions,  of  either  sex, 
of  every  age,  and  of  every  rank;  and  each  proselyte, 
who  entered  the  gates  of  a  monastery,  was  persuaded 
that  he  trod  the  steep  and  thorny  path  of  eternal  hap- 
piness. But  the  operation  of  these  religious  motives 
was  variously  determined  by  the  temper  and  situation 
of  mankind.  Reason  might  subdue,  or  passion  might 
suspend,  their  influence;  but  they  acted  most  forcibly 
on  the  infirm  minds  of  children  and  females ;  they  were 
strengthened  by  secret  remorse,  or  accidental  misfor- 
tune; and  they  might  derive  some  aid  from  the  tem- 
poral considerations  of  vanity  or  interest."  ^ 

Such  a  criticism  is  self-destructive;  for,  if  it  was 
adopted  by  millions  of  either  sex,  and  every  age  and 
rank,  there  can  be  no  explanation  in  the  sneer  about 
the  infirm  minds  of  children  and  females.  It  is  a 
travesty  of  fact  also;  for  the  strongest  and  ablest  men 
of  the  early  Christian  centuries  belonged  to  one  or 
other  of  the  different  grades  of  the  ascetics,  and  de- 
fended the  system — men  like  Basil,  Gregory  of  Nazian- 
zen,  Chrysostom,  Athanasius,  Ambrose,  Augustine, 
Tertullian,  Cyprian,  Jerome.  Besides,  it  is  a  false  in- 
terpretation of  history  to  explain  great  and  permanent 
movements  by  the  unworthy  motives  which  always  are 
mixed  up  with  human  affairs ;  for  it  is  not  these  which 
give  it  its  power  and  its  permanence.     It  is  quite  true 

^Decline  and  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,   chap,  xxxvii. 


ORIGIN  OF  ASCETICISM  185 

that  less  pure  motives  weighed  with  many,  who  em- 
braced the  monastic  Hfe,  especially  when  it  became 
popular,  and  was  a  recognised  path  to  fame  and  power ; 
but  such  a  system  must  have  justified  itself  to  some 
extent  in  what  it  actually  achieved.  And  for  some 
centuries  it  did  so  justify  itself,  not  only  in  the  per- 
sonal good  that  came  to  individual  souls  from  their 
sacrifice,  but  also  in  the  services  rendered  to  the  whole 
body  politic,  which  we  will  consider  briefly  later  on. 
In  many  such  criticisms,  also,  it  is  forgotten  that  the 
whole  movement  was  not  a  clerical  one  at  all  in  its 
origin,  but  began  as  a  lay  profession  in  the  devotion 
of  self-sacrificing  zeal  of  earnest  men.  Monasticism 
was  forced  on  the  Church,  which  was  compelled  to 
recognise  it,  so  spontanteous  and  strong  was  the  stream. 
Indeed,  by  taking  the  movement  in  and  regulating  it, 
the  Church  saved  it  from  disrule  and  speedy  degrada- 
tion, and  used  it  for  centuries  as  a  valuable  engine 
for  the  good  of  the  world. 

The  real  truth  is  that  the  spirit,  which  drove  men 
into  such  extreme  forms  of  self-denial,  as  were  prac- 
tised by  many,  was  only  an  exaggerated  form  of  the 
essential  spirit  which  pervaded  the  whole  Church.  It 
was  an  exaggeration  of  the  normal  moral  earnestness, 
which  was  a  mark  of  a  Christian,  an  earnestness  taken 
out  of  its  true  sphere,  and  thus  running  to  inevitable 
excess.  One  of  the  reasons  which  Gibbon  himself 
gives  for  the  remarkable  victory  of  the  Christian  faith 
over  the  established  religions  of  the  earth  at  the  time, 
is  the  pure  and  austere  morals  of  the  Christians,  though 
he  tries  to  show  that  these  were  largely  due  to  the 
laudable  desire  of  supporting  the  reputation  of  the 
Church.    "  Their  serious  and  sequestered  life,  averse  to 


1 86  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

the  gay  luxury  of  the  age,  inured  them  to  chastity,  tem- 
perance, economy,  and  all  the  sober  and  domestic  vir- 
tues. As  the  greater  number  were  of  some  trade  or 
profession,  it  was  incumbent  on  them,  by  the  strictest 
integrity  and  the  fairest  dealing,  to  remove  the  suspic- 
ions, which  the  profane  are  too  apt  to  conceive  against 
the  appearances  of  sanctity.  The  contempt  of  the 
world  exercised  them  in  habits  of  humility,  meekness, 
and  patience.  The  more  they  were  persecuted,  the 
more  closely  they  adhered  to  each  other.  Their  mutual 
charity  and  unsuspecting  confi'dence  has  been  remarked 
by  infidels,  and  was  too  often  abused  by  perfidious 
friends."  ^  It  is  a  good  certificate  of  character.  A  cer- 
tain austerity  was  natural  in  men,  who  were  called  as 
part  of  the  essence  of  their  faith  to  put  off  the  old 
man  with  his  deeds,  and  put  on  the  new  man  with  the 
qualities  of  the  new  life — mercy,  kindness,  humbleness, 
meekness,  long-suffering,  charity.  Tertullian  asks  with 
noble  triumph  whether  among  all  the  crowd  of  crim- 
inals any  Christians  are  ever  arraigned  for  crimes  of 
violence,  or  theft,  or  sacrilege.  He  points  with  pride 
to  the  fact  that  the  only  legal  crime  for  v»rhich  Chris- 
tians are  condemned  is  for  being  Christians.^  The 
existence  of  this  universal  austere  spirit  implied  the 
danger  of  a  strained  condition  of  some;  but,  if  this 
austerity  got  out  of  its  legitimate  channel  of  the  or- 
dinary common  life  of  the  world,  and  rushed  to  fanati- 
cal extreme  in  a  wrong  channel,  it  was  largely  due  to 
the  violence  of  reaction,  which  we  see  so  copiously 
illustrated  in  all  human  history. 

^Decline  and  Fall,  chap.  xv. 
"Tertullian,  Apology,  chap.  xliv. 


ORIGIN  OF  ASCETICISM  187 

In  all  the  above  statement  we  have  merely  given  the 
historical  environment  which  affords  to  asceticism  the 
suitable  conditions  for  increase;  but  before  we  con- 
sider the  speculative  thought  at  the  root  of  the  ascetic 
ideal,  which  is  its  principle  of  vitality,  we  will  notice 
the  forms  it  took  in  the  Christian  Church  in  the  process 
of  its  growth.  The  ethical  value,  which  Christianity 
undoubtedly  places  on  self-denial,  was  in  the  early 
years  never  allowed  to  assume  undue  proportions. 
Formal  acts  like  fasting,  or  voluntary  celibacy,  were 
not  looked  upon  as  meritorious  in  themselves,  or  as 
necessary  parts  of  religious  duty.  When  there  was  re- 
nunciation of  any  sort,  it  was  kept  in  its  true  place, 
as  only  a  means  of  reaching  a  higher  virtue.  There 
were  no  irrevocable  vows  taken  or  imposed,  and  it 
was  not  supposed  that  the  clergy  were  in  a  special 
sense  called  to  an  ascetic  life.  Even  clerical  celibacy, 
which  ultimately  became  universal  in  the  Church,  was 
the  result  of  a  slow  and  long  process.  Married  bishops 
are  common  even  in  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries,  as, 
for  example,  the  father  of  Gregory  Nazianzen,  and 
Synesius,  Bishop  of  Ptolemais,  who  is  one  of  the  char- 
acters in  Charles  Kingsley's  Hypatia. 

Gradually,  however,  asceticism  came  more  and  more 
to  be  valued  for  its  own  sake,  and  became  more  and 
more  fanatical.  The  early  ascetics  did  not  break  away 
from  the  world,  but  lived  among  the  Christian  com- 
munity, only  distinguished  by  special  sanctity  of  life. 
It  is  not  till  the  third  century  that  we  find  instances  of 
the  hermit  life,  and  this  seems  to  have  been  occasioned 
first  of  all  by  the  persecutions  which  scattered  believers, 
and  forced  many  to  seek  safety  in  desert  places.    The 


1 88  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

monastic  system  had  its  origin  in  these  Hermits  or 
Anchorites,  who  lived  as  Solitaries,  and  found  a 
scanty  subsistence  in  the  wilderness,  and  gave  them- 
selves up  to  holy  meditation  and  prayer.  Persecution, 
as  it  always  does,  fanned  the  flame  of  fanaticism,  and 
the  temper  of  men  grew  hard  in  the  fire.  During  the 
persecution  of  Maximinus,  the  most  famous  of  these 
hermits,  St.  Anthony,  came  into  notice,  and  found 
many  imitators.  The  Thebaid  of  Upper  Egypt  became 
peopled  by  Solitaries,  who  increased  enormously,  and 
it  was  there  that  the  Coenobite  life,  or  what  we  now 
mean  by  the  monastic,  became  an  institution.  It  was 
the  gathering  of  the  separate  hermits  into  one  house  or 
monastery,  and  so  bringing  them  under  a  common  rule ; 
and  it  was  this  monastic  form  which  proved  itself  the 
fittest,  by  surviving  and  displacing  the  other.  The 
ordinary  needs  of  the  religious  life  made  this  inevitable 
— the  need  of  common  worship  and  mutual  edification, 
the  desire  for  the  sacraments  of  the  Church,  and  the 
need  of  an  outlet  for  faith  in  some  form  of  social  serv- 
ice. Besides,  it  was  soon  seen  that  all  sorts  of  ex- 
travagances and  eccentricities  issued  from  the  isolate 
hermit  state,  in  which  each  lived  after  his  own  fancy, 
some  choosing  the  tops  of  pillars,  others  living  in  trees, 
some  called  Boskoi  or  Grazers,  because  they  lived  on 
roots  and  herbs,  some  who  practised  mystic  dances, 
an  ancient  anticipation  of  the  modern  Shakers.  The 
whole  system  would  have  ended  in  madness,  but  for 
the  introduction  of  regular  monasteries.  In  course  of 
time  comprehensive  rules  were  formed,  as  by  Basil 
the  Great,  and  later  on  by  the  founders  of  the  more 
important  orders.  These,  besides  the  vows  of  poverty, 
chastity,  and  obedience,  and  the  ordinary  spiritual  dis- 


ORIGIN  OF  ASCEllCISM  189 

cipline,  usually  included  instructions  about  labour,  and 
even,  as  in  St.  Benedict's  rule,  instructions  regarding 
the  teaching  of  youth,  copying  manuscripts,  and  other 
employments.  The  system  was  much  slower  in  taking 
root  in  Western  Europe  than  it  was  in  the  more  con- 
genial soil  of  the  East,  but  it  did  at  last  take  firm 
hold,  till  it  ultimately  was  co-extensive  with  Christen- 
dom. 

In  addition  to  the  reasons  already  mentioned,  such 
as  that  it  afforded  for  individuals  escape  from  evil  in 
their  environment,  and  offered  opportunities  for  the 
development  of  the  contemplative  life,  the  explana- 
tion of  such  remarkable  growth  lay  in  the  distinct  serv- 
ices to  the  Church  and  the  world,  which  monasteries 
were  enabled  at  different  periods  to  render.  Its  value 
in  the  first  centuries  as  a  missionary  agency  was  im- 
mense, presenting  to  rude  peoples  the  inspiring  spectacle 
of  Christ-like  men,  who  had  given  up  all  selfish  am- 
bitions, and  who  were  not  affected  by  the  ordinary 
motives.  The  early  monks  made  a  great  moral  im- 
pression by  the  unselfishness  and  austerity  of  their 
lives.  Their  sincerity  and  godly  character  influenced 
the  minds  of  barbarous  tribes  as  nothing  else  could  do, 
and  won  their  respect  and  confidence.  Among  heathen 
people  they  were  the  most  effective  missionaries,  and 
carried  the  gospel  into  many  dark  places  of  the  earth. 
Unworldliness,  the  capacity  for  prolonged  endurance, 
a  simple-hearted  devotion  to  duty,  will  always  com- 
mand influence  over  men,  quite  apart  from  the  ques- 
tion whether  these  qualities  are  exercised  for  right  or 
wrong  ends.  This  fact  soon  became  known  to  Church 
leaders,  who  sometimes  used  the  system  for  Church 
purposes,  as  for  example  when  Basil  established  a  com- 


I90  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

pany  of  monks  in  Cappadocia  to  counteract  Arianism, 
which  had  a  stronghold  there.  Men,  who  are  above 
the  common  motives  which  sway  others,  have  an  em- 
pire over  hearts  by  virtue  of  their  sacrifice.  Sozomen  ^ 
states  that  the  reason  why  the  Arian  and  ApolHnarist 
heresies  had  no  permanent  success  in  the  Church,  was 
because  the  SoHtaries  of  the  day  took  part  against 
them.  The  ascetics  adhered  to  the  Nicene  creed,  an<i 
the  people  had  such  reverence  for  their  character  and 
work,  that  they  trusted  their  doctrine  to  be  orthodox. 
We  cannot  do  anything  like  historic  justice  to  the 
monastic  system  also,  without  admitting  the  practical 
good  it  achieved  in  various  lines  throughout  the  cen- 
turies that  followed.  The  monasteries  in  their  pure 
state  were  always  schools  of  labour,  in  which  the  day 
was  divided  into  work  and  prayer.  They  were  also 
schools  of  charity,  for  the  poor  who  lived  within  reach, 
for  travellers  and  pilgrims  passing  through.  It  can- 
not be  forgotten,  also,  that  in  some  periods  of  Euro- 
pean history  they  served  a  useful  part  in  mitigating 
the  distresses  of  the  time,  as  a  refuge  for  the  op- 
pressed. Amid  the  wars  and  conquests  of  the  Middle 
Ages  they  remained  inviolate  among  the  wildest  vio- 
lence, on  account  of  the  sanctity  attached  to  the  char- 
acter of  the  inmates,  or  to  the  place  itself.  They  were 
humanising  centres,  as  they  had  been  in  pagan  or  semi- 
pagan,  so  also  in  nominally  Christian  countries,  con- 
vincing men  of  the  sincerity  of  the  Religious  by  the 
self-denial  they  practised.  Especially  was  this  the  case 
after  the  great  religious  revival,  associated  with  the 
name  of  the  Franciscans  at  the  beginning  of  the  thir- 
teenth century.    It  is  an  indication  at  once  of  the  won- 

*  History,  vi.  27. 


ORIGIN  OF  ASCETICISM  191 

derful  extension  of  the  Franciscan  order  and  of  their 
essential  spirit,  that  in  the  next  century  after  their  foun- 
dation, during  the  Black  Death,  more  than  a  hundred 
thousand  Franciscans  died  through  their  nursing  of 
the  sick  and  ministering  to  the  dying.  It  was  a  new- 
conception  of  monastic  duty,  which  made  the  care  of 
others  as  important  a  feature  of  their  work  as  the 
personal  spiritual  sanctification,  which  had  been  the 
first  thought  of  the  early  monks.  Mr.  Lecky,  who  is 
certainly  not  biassed  in  their  favour,  only  does  monks 
fair  justice  when  he  states, — ''  Every  monastery  became 
a  centre  of  charity.  By  the  monks  the  nobles  were 
overawed,  the  poor  protected,  the  sick  tended,  travellers 
sheltered,  prisoners  ransomed,  the  remotest  spheres  of 
suffering  explored.  During  the  darkest  period  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  monks  founded  a  refuge  for  pilgrims 
amid  the  horrors  of  the  Alpine  snows.  .  .  .  When 
the  hideous  disease  of  leprosy  extended  its  ravages 
over  Europe,  and  men's  minds  were  filled  with  terror, 
not  only  by  its  loathsomeness  and  its  contagion,  but 
also  by  the  notion  that  it  was  in  a  peculiar  sense  super- 
natural, hospitals  overspread  Europe,  and  monks  flocked 
in  multitudes  to  serve  them."  ^ 

Some  of  these  good  results,  however,  must  not  be 
laid  to  the  account  of  asceticism,  as  they  were  due 
rather  to  a  neglect  of  the  logical  conclusions  of  their 
creed.  The  great  monastic  orders,  after  all,  made  their 
impress  on  the  world,  not  through  any  individual  as- 
ceticism on  the  part  of  their  members,  but  through 
their  useful  labours  as  an  order,  through  creating  new 
and  better  social  conditions,  or  ameliorating  conditions 
that  were  hard,  which  really  meant  modifying  the  orig- 

*  Lecky,  Hist,  of  European  Morals,  vol.  ii. 


192  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

inal  purpose  of  the  system.  The  first  great  example 
of  such  modification  is  found  in  the  Benedictines,  the 
rules  of  whose  order  enjoined  some  useful  employment 
on  every  monk.  With  them  a  high  place  was  given  to 
education;  study  was  encouraged,  and  the  copying  of 
manuscripts  was  an  established  practice,  so  that  their 
monasteries  became  repositories  of  learning. 

It  is  quite  true  that  we  can  find  some  historic  causes 
for  the  great  extension  of  the  system  in  unworthy  mo- 
tives, both  on  the  part  of  some  who  entered,  and  on 
the  part  of  the  Church  which  countenanced  it.  It  is 
quite  true  that  the  Church  encouraged  it  latterly,  even 
after  its  most  useful  days  were  past,  as  a  means  of 
securing  her  complete  ascendancy.  The  submissive 
spirit,  which  was  held  out  as  the  ideal,  and  which 
reached  its  limits  in  Monasticism,  naturally  suited  a 
dominant  Church ;  not  to  speak  of  the  immense  wealth, 
which  came  into  her  hands  in  various  ways,  as  well  as 
from  those  who  adopted  the  monastic  habit.  But,  as 
we  have  had  already  occasion  to  show,  all  the  unworthy 
motives  put  together  could  not  account  for  the  vitality 
and  extent  of  any  great  organisation;  and  it  must  not 
be  forgotten  that  the  monastic  system  had  its  roots  in 
a  deeply  religious  instinct. 

The  hold  it  took  on  the  mind  of  man  for  centuries 
was  immense;  and  it  gave  an  ascetic  colour  even  to 
those  who  were  in  revolt  against  it,  creating  a  peculiar 
conscience,  and  an  introspective  habit  of  thought.  This 
is  seen  in  a  remarkable  manner  from  a  scene  in  the 
life  of  Petrarch,  who  was  a  typical  Humanist,  and  had 
naturally  little  sympathy  with  the  ascetic  ideal.  He 
was  a  child  of  the  Renaissance,  and  had  a  love  of 


ORIGIN  OF  ASCETICISM  193 

natural  beauty  which  was  almost  unique  in  his  time. 
On  one  occasion  he  climbed  Mount  Ventoux,  and 
describes  his  amazement  at  the  wonderful  view  of  hills 
and  valleys,  land  and  sea;  but  just  at  the  moment  of 
keenest  enjoyment  there  came  a  revulsion  of  feeling, 
which  showed  him  to  be  a  child  of  the  monastic  age, 
as  well  as  of  the  Renaissance.  He  writes :  "  Thus  gaz- 
ing, now  singling  out  some  single  object,  now  letting 
my  sight  range  far  into  the  distance,  now  raising  eyes 
and  soul  to  heaven,  I  unconsciously  drew  out  of  my 
pocket  Augustine's  Confessions,  a  book  I  always  carry 
with  me,  and  it  opened  at  this  passage,  '  Men  go  to 
wonder  at  the  peaks  of  the  mountains,  the  huge  waves 
of  the  sea,  the  broad  rivers,  the  great  ocean,  the  circles 
of  the  stars,  and  for  these  things  forget  themselves.' 
I  trembled  at  these  words,  shut  the  book,  and  fell  into 
a  rage  with  myself  for  gaping  at  earthly  things  when 
I  ought  to  have  learned  long  ago,  even  from  heathen 
philosophers,  that  the  soul  is  the  only  great  and  as- 
tonishing thing.  Silent  I  left  the  mountain,  and  turned 
my  view  from  the  things  without  me  to  that  within."  ^ 
It  is  a  false  sentiment,  but  with  a  heart  of  truth,  and 
it  graphically  describes  the  inwardness,  with  which 
the  long  history  of  monasticism  penetrated  the  natur- 
ally active  and  practical  temper  of  Western  Europe. 
It  also  helps  to  explain  some  of  the  features  of  the 
Renaissance,  the  queer  mixture  of  sentimental  religous- 
ness  combined  with  an  absolute  lack  of  moral  perspec- 
tive, seen  in  most  glaring  contrast  in  such  a  character 
as  Benvenuto  Cellini ;  and  it  helps  to  explain  even  the 

^Vide  Van  Dyke,  Age  of  Renaissance,  p.  28.     (C3iarles 
Scribner's  Sons.) 


194  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

abnormal  excesses  of  some  Humanists,  as  due  to  an 
uneasy  conscience,  which  had  been  trained  to  consider 
the  ascetic  ideal  the  highest. 

All  that  we  have  hitherto  urged  does  not  explain 
the  firm  grip  which  asceticism  took  of  human  life,  but 
only  shows  how  it  received  the  suitable  environment. 
It  is  not  explained  even  by  the  undoubted  sympathy 
it  has  with  some  notes  of  the  Christian  faith,  such  as 
the  emphasis  on  heart-religion  and  on  spiritual  union 
with  God.  It  is  too  contradictory  of  other  essential 
marks  of  Christianity  to  be  thus  explained.  Besides, 
such  considerations  do  not  explain  the  existence  of 
asceticism  in  other  and  pre-Christian  religions,  where 
it  has  been  carried  to  greater  extremes  than  in  the 
Church.  We  need  to  look  beyond  Christian  history 
for  the  root  conception  of  asceticism,  and  this  is  found 
in  the  Oriental  answer  to  the  problem  of  the  origin 
of  evil.  The  deepest  thought  in  all  ascetic  practice 
is  that  sin  is  due  to  matter  or  to  the  body  of  man. 
That  this  is  so  is  further  evidenced  by  the  fact  that 
complete  asceticism  only  entered  the  Church  through 
the  Oriental  admixture  of  ideas  in  Gnosticism,  where 
the  supposed  enlightenment,  which  Gnostics  claimed 
for  themselves  by  special  revelation,  was  dependent  on 
certain  ascetic  rites.  It  is  difficult  for  us  to  realise  the 
terrible  struggle  which  this  heresy  brought  to  the 
Church  of  the  second  century,  so  apart  is  the  type  of 
speculation  from  our  modern  view  of  looking  at  the 
world. 

Gnosticism  got  its  name  from  laying  emphasis  on 
supposed  knowledge  (gnosis),  thinking  more  of  in- 
tellectual apprehension  of  spiritual  truth  than  of  faith. 


ORIGIN  OF  ASCETICISM  195 

It  was  the  influence  of  pagan  speculation  on  the  Chris- 
tian faith.  One  of  its  purposes  was  an  attempt  to  solve 
the  old  riddle  of  the  origin  of  evil;  and  this  it  did  in 
connection  with  its  special  doctrine  of  creation,  which 
meant  practical  dualisntj  separating  God  from  the 
world,  the  one  being  the  principle  of  good,  the  other 
the  evil  principle.  It  thus  accepted  the  common  Ori- 
ental position  that  evil  is  inherent  in  matter.  It  ex- 
plained the  creation  of  the  world  by  a  series  of  stages, 
of  emanations  from  God,  each  becoming  less  divine, 
until  matter  (which  was  evil)  was  formed  and  made 
the  lowest  link  in  the  chain.  Of  course  there  is  no 
solution  in  this,  even  as  a  theory  from  their  own  prem- 
ises ;  but  it  is  a  common  fallacy,  to  which  some  scientific 
men  of  our  own  day  have  been  prone,  to  imagine  that 
an  explanation  is  reached  by  positing  an  endless  series 
either  of  time  or  of  stages,  to  imagine  that  the  descrip- 
tion of  a  method  explains  a  process  or  a  cause.  We 
can  see  how  the  Gnostics  were  forced  to  some  such  con- 
clusion as  they  reached ;  as  their  starting-point  was  the 
absolute  antagonism  between  spirit  and  matter.  Since 
God  could  have  no  direct  connection  with  what  was 
essentially  evil,  they  interposed  spiritual  beings  be- 
tween God  and  man,  who,  as  they  were  the  means  of 
communication  with  God,  naturally  also  became  objects 
of  worship.  All  kinds  of  weird  mysticism  in  various 
Gnostic  systems  grew  out  of  this  theosophy,  combining 
in  varjnng  degree  different  elements  of  Christian  truth ; 
but  the  one  common  feature  was  a  dualism,  in  which 
the  world  of  matter,  as  being  evil,  was  opposed  to 
God. 

The  moral  results  of  this  creed  ran  in  two  opposite 
directions  which  at  first  seem  contradictory,  but  are 


196  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

seen  to  have  the  same  source;  one  was  towards  asceti- 
cism, the  other  towards  license.  It  is  not  difficult  to 
understand  how  these  two  opposing  ethical  concep- 
tions grew  from  the  same  root.  ( i )  If  matter  be  evil, 
and  man  is  bound  up  in  matter,  the  spirit  is  to  be 
freed  by  as  complete  abstinence  as  possible,  by  having 
as  little  to  do  with  the  physical  as  can  be,  by  mortify- 
ing the  body.  The  more  we  reduce  the  contact,  the 
better  chance  we  have  of  avoiding  defilement :  the  more 
the  cord  that  binds  soul  and  body  is  attenuated,  the 
purer  the  soul  becomes.  The  way  to  attain  spirituality 
is  to  suppress  and  uproot  the  sensuous. 

(2)  But  at  the  best  this  can  only  be  partial.  We 
cannot  altogether,  do  what  we  hke,  escape  the  malig- 
nant touch  of  surrounding  evil,  so  long  as  we  live. 
So  the  opposite  rule  was  arrived  at,  that  matter  does 
not  really  count  in  the  spiritual  life  of  man,  that 
instead  of  fighting  and  trampling  on  it,  the  best  way 
to  show  contempt  of  it  is  to  pay  no  heed  to  it.  Let 
a  man  just  follow  the  bent  of  his  nature ;  let  him  treat 
the  evil  matter  as  something  outside  of  himself.  The 
world  of  sense  is  a  thing  apart,  and  has  no  claims  over 
the  spirit.  So,  riotous  libertinism  was  often  the  result 
of  the  very  theory,  which  also  produced  the  fiercest 
severity  to  the  body;  both  alike  due  to  the  selfsame 
thought  of  the  essential  contradiction  of  the  sensuous 
and  the  spiritual  elements  of  human  nature. 

Still,  though  license  of  life  was  an  inevitable  eflFect 
to  many,  as  a  matter  of  fact  to  the  more  serious  and 
religious  minds  the  other  alternative  of  asceticism  was 
the  course  chosen.  The  tendency  to  make  religion  a 
mystery,  as  was  the  case  with  Gnosticism,  is  naturally 
accompanied  to  a  sincerely  religious  man  with  a  tend- 


ORIGIN  OF  ASCETICISM  197 

ency  to  make  morality  ascetic.  For,  "  just  in  pro- 
portion as  the  divine  is  separated  from  the  human,  and 
the  Christian  conception  of  their  unity  loses  its  direct 
relation  to  life,  salvation  gets  to  be  conceived  as  a 
deliverance  of  man  from  the  world,  and  not  as  a  de- 
liverance of  the  world  from  itself,  or  as  the  realisation 
of  the  divine  spirit  in  it.  The  idea  that  the  natural  is 
essentially  impure,  and  that  the  ideal  life  is,  so  far 
as  possible,  to  escape  from  it,  is  the  necessary  result 
of  a  religious  doctrine  that  breaks  the  bond  between 
God  and  His  creatures."  ^ 

Against  Gnosticism  the  Church  of  the  second  cen- 
tury had  to  fight  for  very  life,  and  she  has  since  borne 
the  scars  of  the  struggle  both  in  creed  and  in  prac- 
tice. It  was  a  formidable  rival,  partly  because  ascetic 
tendencies  were  widely  spread  at  the  time,  and  partly 
because  the  polytheistic  instincts  of  pagan  peoples 
would  be  satisfied  by  angel-worship  and  similar  fea- 
tures. But  the  danger  chiefly  lay  in  the  Church  com- 
ing to  terms  with  it  rather  for  the  sake  of  the  good 
that  was  in  it,  and  because  to  some  extent  the  two 
could  go  together  a  certain  distance.  Indeed,  as  we 
have  hinted,  the  Church  did  let  herself  be  too  much 
influenced  by  philosophical  speculations  similar  to 
Gnosticism.  The  explanation  why  this  Gnostic  philos- 
ophy grew  to  such  proportions,  and  affected  the  Church 
so  much,  lay  in  its  points  of  contact  with  Christianity. 
They  both  sought  salvation  from  sin,  and  the  union 
of  man  with  God;  and  even  the  rigorous  asceticism 
after  all  seemed  only  a  more  serious  and  determined 
form  of  Christian  morality.  The  widespread  dualism 
which  is  seen  in  so  many  forms  in  the  ancient  world, 

*  Edward  Caird,  The  Evolution  of  Religion,  vol.  ii.  p,  284. 


198  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

was  due  to  a  religious  instinct.  The  dualism  of  Greek 
philosophy,  with  its  attendant  ascetic  practice,  was  a 
protest  against  the  common  Greek  religion,  which 
deified  nature  and  sanctioned  all  human  impulses  as 
divine;  and  early  Christianity,  which  had  a  thousand- 
fold keener  moral  passion  against  the  impurity  of  life 
that  was  the  fruit  of  pagan  nature-religion,  naturally 
allied  itself  with  the  higher  principle,  and  was  in- 
clined to  fall  into  the  same  mistake  of  dualism.  The 
Church  did  not  come  out  of  this  struggle  without  marks 
of  conflict.  The  victor  was  affected  for  good  and 
for  evil;  and  one  of  the  effects,  for  good  and  for 
evil,  was  the  ascetic  bent  given  to  the  Christian  life. 
Many  times  in  subsequent  movements  the  Church 
seems  to  hover  on  the  brink  of  this  dualism,  which 
so  completely  sanctions  asceticism.  Thus,  we  find 
something  almost  like  dualism  in  much  of  mediaeval 
devotional  literature,  the  same  inevitable  combination 
of  mystical  speculation  and  practical  asceticism.  The 
common  depreciating  of  the  body,  the  despising  it  as 
the  seat  of  sin,  are  symptoms  of  an  underlying  concept 
tion  similar  to  the  Gnostic.  The  innate  evil  of  the 
body  as  such  is  often  a  presupposition,  as  could  be 
shown  by  countless  quotations  from  almost  any  well- 
known  devotional  book.  "  The  devil  sleepeth  not,"  says 
A  Kempis,  ''  neither  is  the  flesh  yet  dead ;  therefore 
cease  not  to  prepare  thyself  to  the  battle."  ^  Or  take 
such  a  saying  as  this  from  the  teaching  of  Brother 
Giles,  one  of  the  companions  of  St.  Francis :  "  Our 
wretched  and  weak  human  flesh  is  like  the  pig,  that 
ever  delighteth  to  wallow  and  befoul  itself  in  the  mud, 
deeming  the  mud  its  great  delight.     Our  flesh  is  the 

^  Imitatio  Christi,  Bk.  11.,  chap.  ix. 


ORIGIN  OF  ASCETICISM  199 

devil's  knight ;  for  it  resists  and  fights  against  all  those 
things  that  are  of  God  for  our  salvation."  ^ 

Alexandrian  thought,  which  influenced  the  creed 
of  the  whole  Church  so  powerfully,  was  moved  by  the 
attempt  to  mediate  between  Jewish  Christianity  and 
Greek  dualism,  and  was  always  inclined  to  look  on  the 
body  as  a  clog  hindering  the  spirit;  so  that  with  it 
the  ideal  came  to  be  the  uprooting  of  the  physical 
principle  of  life  rather  than  the  sanctifying  of  it.  It 
was  through  this  strong  impact  of  Gnostic  influence 
that  the  Church  got  the  decided  ascetic  bent,  which  per- 
sisted for  centuries.  Whatever  other  elements  entered 
into  the  various  Gnostic  systems,  this  one  of  the  in- 
herent sinfulness  of  matter  was  always  present.  This 
attitude  to  matter  as  evil  led  some  of  the  later  Gnostics 
to  hold  Docetic  views  of  Christ's  life;  for,  if  matter 
is  evil,  Jesus,  they  held,  could  never  have  taken  a  real 
body.  The  earthly  body  in  which  He  appeared  to  men 
could  only  be  an  illusion,  and  His  death  also  only  an 
appearance.  From  the  austerity  which  we  have  seen 
was  natural  to  Christians  in  face  of  a  corrupt  civilisa- 
tion, we  can  understand  the  points  of  contact  such 
speculations  would  have  with  the  Christian  faith;  and 
the  Gnostic  heresy  would  get  foothold  through  the  fact 
that  there  were  groups  in  the  Church  from  the  earliest 
days,  who  tended  towards  a  rigid  practice  of  asceti- 
cism, making  vegetarianism,  celibacy,  renunciation  of 
worldly  goods,  rules  of  life. 

We  can  see,  for  example,  from  the  Epistle  to  the 
Colossians,  that  St.  Paul  is  there  combating  false 
teachers,  who  seem  to  have  been  tainted  with  what 
came  afterwards  to  be  known  as  Gnostic  ideas.     It 

*  Teaching  of  Brother  Giles^  viii. 


200  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

is  not  to  be  supposed  that  St.  Paul  was  confronted 
with  a  completely  formulated  system.  We  do  not 
find  in  the  epistle  anything  like  the  full  Gnostic  system, 
which  was  a  later  growth,  but  we  find  symptoms  similar 
to  those  which  later  on  developed  into  that  heresy. 
The  indications  are  vague,  because  the  system  had  not 
been  formulated  with  definiteness  as  it  came  to  be  in 
the  second  century.  It  is  rather  a  tendency  of  some- 
what similar  character.  Phrygia  was  a  hotbed  of  such 
speculations,  and  gave  a  suitable  climate  for  the  Gnostic 
leaven,  though  in  all  probability,  when  St.  Paul  wrote, 
the  Church  was  only  troubled  by  a  local  form  of  the- 
osophy,  mixing  the  Christian  teaching  with  Jewish  and 
Pagan  elements.  Orientalism  was  then,  and  increas- 
ingly came  to  be,  in  the  air,  and  there  was  a  ferment 
of  mystical  speculation;  but  whatever  the  other  in- 
gredients, this  idea  of  matter  as  essentially  evil  seems 
the  constant  factor,  and  that  implied  an  extreme  ascetic 
morality. 

The  two  chief  characteristics  of  the  false  teachers 
at  Colossae  certainly  seem  to  have  been  similar  errors 
of  speculation  and  practical  errors.  The  speculative 
errors  included  a  worship  of  angels  and  intermediate 
powers,  dethroning  Christ  from  at  least  His  unique 
place,  as  such  references  show  as,  "  Let  no  man  beguile 
you  of  your  reward  in  a  voluntary  humility  and  wor- 
shipping of  angels."  ^  The  indications  suggest  the  be- 
ginnings of  the  fantastic  Gnostic  system,  in  which  the 
creation  of  the  world  was  looked  on  as  a  series  of 
divine  emanations  down  through  an  almost  endless 
hierarchy  of  spiritual  powers,  in  which  Jesus  took  a 
place,  till  at  last  matter,  the  lowest  in  the  scale,  was 

*  Col.  ii.  i8. 


ORIGIN  OF  ASCETICISM  201 

reached.  The  practical  error  grew  out  of  their  view 
of  evil  as  a  property  of  matter,  which  made  asceticism 
a  necessity.  So  we  find  them  recommending  various 
kinds  of  abstinence  as  methods  of  attaining  perfection. 
St.  Paul  ironically  repeats  their  formula  of  prohibi- 
tion, "  Handle  not,  nor  taste,  nor  touch."  ^  They  rec- 
ommended austerities  to  check  the  indulgence  of  the 
flesh,  and  part  of  St.  Paul's  argument  is  to  point  out 
that  such  treatment  is  worthless  for  the  purpose.  The 
severity  to  the  body,  which  was  part  of  their  teaching, 
failed  to  lift  them  out  of  the  range  of  their  dreaded 
enemy.  Their  barren  struggle  against  the  things  which 
perish  in  the  using,  only  obscured  for  them  the  real 
problem  of  sin.  A  life  swayed  by  a  rigorous  ascetic 
motive  may  have  no  richness  nor  depth  in  it,  and  be 
only  external  conformity  to  rules — "  the  precepts  and 
doctrines  of  men,"  as  St.  Paul  calls  them.  All  such 
externalism  in  morality  defeats  itself.  St.  Paul,  as 
his  argument  shows,  detected  the  danger  in  the  incipi- 
ent Gnosticism  of  the  Colossians,  a  danger  which  after- 
wards proved  to  be  a  very  real  one,  of  the  faith  be- 
coming a  sort  of  esoteric  doctrine  full  of  mystical 
speculation,  and  at  the  same  time  losing  all  its  ethical 
hold  on  life. 

Points  of  contact  may  also  be  noted  with  similar 
manifestations  on  the  Jewish  side  in  the  strange  sect 
of  the  Essenes,  a  sect  not  mentioned  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment, but  which  influenced  the  early  Church.  Practi- 
cally all  our  information  about  them  comes  from  Jo- 
sephus,  and  Philo  of  Alexandria,  and  a  short  note  by  the 
Roman  Pliny.  Briefly,  the  Essenes  seem  to  have  been 
a  sect  of  Jews,  practising  a  form  of  religious  commun- 

*  Col.  ii.  21. 


202  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

ism  with  no  private  property — on  one  side  an  exag- 
gerated type  of  the  Pharisee,  with  scrupulous  washings 
and  strict  keeping  of  the  Sabbath ;  but  in  addition  they 
lived  with  a  strictness  unknown  to  the  ordinary  Jew, 
refused  to  drink  wine  or  eat  flesh,  refused  the  use  of 
oil  for  anointing,  excluded  women,  and  prohibited  mar- 
riage. They  had  also  secret  doctrines  of  angels,  and 
mystical  theories  of  the  soul  and  the  world.  They 
too  seemed  to  have  believed  in  the  inherent  evil  of 
matter,  as  they  denied  the  immortality  of  the  body, 
while  holding  that  of  the  soul.  ''  Their  doctrine  is," 
writes  Josephus,  "  that  bodies  are  corruptible  and  that 
the  matter  they  are  made  of  is  not  permanent ;  but  that 
the  souls  are  immortal,  and  continue  for  ever,  and  that 
they  come  out  of  the  most  subtle  air,  and  are  united 
to  their  bodies  as  to  prisons,  into  which  they  are  drawn 
by  a  certain  natural  enticement ;  but  that  when  they  are 
set  free  from  the  bonds  of  the  flesh,  they  then,  as  re- 
leased from  a  long  bondage,  rejoice  and  mount  up- 
ward." ^  This  thought  of  the  body  as  the  prison  of  the 
soul,  existing  only  as  a  dreadful  hindrance  to  the 
spirit,  is  the  conception  which  underlies  all  asceticism, 
and  means  dualism  in  the  world  and  life.  When  car- 
ried to  its  logical  conclusion,  it  ends  in  despair.  In 
the  Christian  Church  it  never  was  quite  logical,  and 
could  not  be,  if  it  were  to  retain  any  Christian  features 
at  all. 

Thus,  even  in  the  mediaeval  Church,  Christian  as- 
ceticism was  saved  from  the  worst  results  of  such  a 
system  by  being  looked  on  as  a  means  to  an  end — 
an  end  -which  included  the  ultimate  good  of  the  body 
itself.    The  Church  never  allowed  dualism  in  its  creed, 

*  Josephus,  Wars  of  the  Jews,  ii^  viii,  ii. 


ORIGIN  OF  ASCETICISM  203 

and  never  accepted  the  idea  that  matter  was  essentially 
evil.  This  is  graphically  seen  in  St.  Augustine's  Con- 
fessions, where  the  greatest  intellectual  difficulty  he 
had  in  accepting  Christianity  was  the  attraction  of 
Manichaeism,  a  system  which  assumed  the  existence  of 
two  rival  powers  antagonistic  to  each  other,  from 
which  all  created  things  come.  Augustine  knew  that 
any  such  thought  was  radically  opposed  to  Christi- 
anity ;  and  afterwards,  when  he  had  rejected  the  heresy, 
though  naturally  he  was  ascetic  by  temperament  and 
went  as  far  as  any  in  practical  renunciation,  yet  in  the 
statement  of  his  theology  he  denied  dualism  in  the 
world  in  any  shape  or  form  of  the  theory.  This  denial, 
which  is  essential  to  all  Christian  theology,  carried 
with  it  the  conclusion  that  the  natural  powers  of  man, 
which  are  so  often  evil  in  tendency,  can  be  turned  into 
good,  indeed  must  be.  Christian  asceticism  in  its 
deepest  thought  renounced  the  world  in  order  to  save 
it :  its  purpose  was  to  sanctify  the  physic.al  nature,  and 
make  it  an  instrument  of  spiritual  good.  It  was  not 
an  escape  from  the  natural,  but  a  conquest  of  it.  Thus, 
when  the  ascetic  ideal  had  strongest  hold  of  the  Church, 
the  ultimate  reconciliation  was  never  quite  lost  sight 
of;  and  this  is  why  the  idea  of  loving  service  of  the 
world,  such  as  inspired  the  Franciscans,  is  a  natural 
development  of  Christian  ascetic  piety.  Merciless  to 
itself  it  might  be,  but  tender  to  others. 

We  must  also  remember  that  the  thought  of  dualism 
in  the  world  is  a  very  natural  mistake,  and  may  be 
due  to  a  very  noble  one.  Whenever  the  soul  awakes 
in  a  man,  depreciation  of  the  body  is  a  natural  conse- 
quence, since  in  the  body  the  results  of  sin  are  most 
manifest.     It  is  through  the  body  that  man  is  seen 


204  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

to  be  vulnerable  to  evil.  Physical  transgression  is  pal- 
pable and  obtrusive,  so  that  the  body  is  recognised  as 
without  doubt  the  occasion  for  sin,  giving  foothold  for 
evil  in  the  life.  It  is  a  simple  step  from  this  to  the 
position  that  it  is  also  the  cause  of  sin.  To  the  spiritual 
man  the  body  seems  to  humiliate  the  soul,  and  the  first 
impulse  is  to  spend  the  strength  in  internecine  war- 
fare between  the  flesh  and  spirit.  The  Christian  doc- 
trine of  self-sacrifice  at  first  also  seems  to  countenance 
this  view  of  the  body  as  fit  only  to  be  set  aside  in 
the  onward  march  of  soul.  The  Bible,  however,  never 
ascribes  evil  to  matter  as  such,  or  to  body  as  such ;  and 
the  body  is  consistently  regarded  as  an  integral  part 
of  man's  nature.  The  New  Testament  ideal  is  ever  a 
sanctified  body,  freed  from  sin,  glorified,  not  anni- 
hilated ;  and  never  thinks  of  a  disembqdied  state  as  the 
ideal,  even  in  connection  with  its  doctrine  of  the  resur- 
rection. The  New  Testament  writers,  in  ascribing  to 
Christ  a  flesh  like  ours,  and  yet  maintaining  His  sin- 
lessness,  show  that  they  did  not  assume  dualism  in 
human  nature,  nor  that  evil  was  an  essential  part  of 
man's  physical  constitution.  The  Christian  position 
is  that  the  body  is  not  a  clog  on  the  spirit  hindering 
its  high  desires:  it  is  the  vehicle  by  which  the  spirit 
works,  and  the  channel  through  which  the  spirit  is 
taught  and  influenced.  The  very  heart  of  the  Chris- 
tian position  is  stated  by  St.  Paul  when  he  says  in  pro- 
found words,  "  The  body  is  for  the  Lord,  and  the  Lord 
for  the  body."  ^  The  incarnation  has  set  the  seal  of 
glory  on  human  flesh.  The  doctrinal  value  of  the  in- 
carnation and  the  death  and  the  resurrection  of  Christ 
must  lie  in  the  fact  that  He  took  on  Him  real  and 

*  I  Cor.  vi.  3. 


ORIGIN  OF  ASCETICISM  205 

complete  human  nature.  That  Jesus  was  made  man, 
born  of  a  woman,  that  He  drank  of  the  cup  of  human 
life  and  tasted  what  it  is  for  a  man  to  die,  means 
dignity  for  the  very  flesh.  What  He  has  so  graced  and 
blessed  cannot  be  called  common  or  unclean. 


VIII 

THE  FAILURE  OF  THE  ASCETIC  IDEAL 

IT  might  be  thought  unnecessary  to  enter  at  this 
late  day  into  an  exposure  of  this  ideal,  as  it  may 
be  contended  that  the  world  has  quietly  put  it 
aside  as  an  exploded  error.  It  has  been  judged 
in  its  fullest  form  in  the  monastic  system,  and  has 
been  found  wanting.  It  might  be  dismissed  by  us  as 
disposed  of  by  the  verdict  of  history,  after  a  long  trial, 
and  under  the  most  favourable  circumstances.  New- 
man in  his  Apologia  describes  how  Augustine's  words, 
Securus  judicat  orbis  t  err  arum,  impressed  him  when 
he  was  taking  his  momentous  step  to  the  Church  of 
Rome ;  and  we  may  use  the  same  words  about  the  great 
monastic  system,  and  may  think  that  the  whole  theory 
on  which  it  was  based  is  set  aside  by  the  practical  una- 
nimity of  judgment  against  it  which  history  records ; 
but  such  might  be  no  more  a  valid  and  ultimate  argu- 
ment than  it  was  in  Newman's  case.  Weight  must 
always  be  given  to  what  seems  like  the  universal  assent 
of  mankind,  as  in  some  of  the  instinctive  beliefs  which 
rarely  fail  men.  The  verdict  of  history  may  appear 
conclusive  on  the  ascetic  theory  as  found  in  the  mon- 
astic system;  but  history  also  shows  the  tendency  to 
revert  to  seemingly  outworn  stages,  renewing  them 
once  more  with  vigour,  though  it  may  be  with  a  dif- 
ference. Also,  the  problems  of  life  are  never  solved 
once  for  all :  the  old  foes  return  with  a  new  face,  and 

206 


FAILURE  OF  THE  ASCETIC  IDEAL  207 

each  generation  has  to  make  its  own  solutions.  Even 
the  corruption  of  the  monasteries,  which  was  so  fla- 
grant, and  which  made  an  indignant  world  sweep  them 
away,  does  not  dispose  of  the  theory  for  which  they 
stood;  as  abuse  is  no  conclusive  argument  against  the 
original  value  of  the  institution  itself.  In  any  case, 
whether  there  be  a  danger  of  a  revival  of  similar  mani- 
festations among  us  in  our  modern  life  or  not,  the 
truth,  which  gave  the  system  its  vitality,  is  no  less  a 
truth  to-day,  and  is  open  to  exaggeration  and  false 
applications  still.  It  thus  remains  useful,  if  not  nec- 
essary, to  notice  the  defects  and  temptations  of  the 
ascetic  ideal. 

The  ascetic  ideal  taken  by  itself  results  in  failure, 
even  more  disastrous  than  the  failure  of  the  theor>- 
of  self-culture;  for  the  latter  at  least  aims  at  a  posi- 
tive end,  while  the  former  spends  its  strength  on  a 
merely  negative  method.  We  have  admitted  that  there 
is  truth  in  both,  and  that  a  place  must  be  found  for 
both  in  our  plan  of  a  true  life ;  but,  though  asceticism 
may  be  the  nobler  fault  arising  from  a  passionate  long- 
ing for  purity,  the  other  ideal  is  the  more  complete. 
This  can  be  seen  from  the  fact  that  even  ascetic  prac- 
tises can  only  be  justified  as  methods  chosen  to  reach 
a  truer  culture.  Indeed  culture,  if  it  is  to  be  more  than 
an  easy  acceptance  of  the  natural,  must  to  some  extent 
make  use  of  restraint  to  achieve  its  end.  Sacrifice  is 
essential  for  a  well-balanced  character  and  life.  The 
scholar  must  make  some  sacrifice  of  bodily  health,  or 
at  least  of  bodily  pleasure,  if  only  to  give  him  time  to 
study.  It  is  recognised  to  be  justifiable  to  give  up 
pleasure  of  sense  in  the  interests  of  intellectual  good, 


2o8  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

to  "  scorn  delights  and  live  laborious  days,"  that  truth 
may  be  reached.  It  can  be  even  seen  to  be  noble  and 
right  to  make  some  sacrifice  and  mental  culture  for  a 
larger  spiritual  good.  Sacrifice  there  must  always  be, 
since  nothing  can  be  got  without  it;  and  the  ideal  of 
culture  would  be  a  dead-letter  without  the  upward 
striving.  When  the  lower  in  any  sphere  is  given  up 
for  the  higher,  we  commend  the  sacrifice,  and  feel  that 
it  is  amply  justified. 

But  while  culture,  rightly  viewed,  is  forced  to  ad- 
mit a  place  for  sacrifice,  it  only  throws  out  into  clearer 
relief  the  subordinate  position  of  sacrifice  as  purely  a 
means.  Sacrifice,  which  looks  upon  the  restraint  as  a 
good  thing  in  itself,  and  which  is  not  undertaken  ex- 
plicitly for  some  other  end,  is  the  barrenest  and  the 
most  dangerous  object  man  can  set  before  him.  It  is 
dishonouring  both  to  man  and  to  God ;  to  man,  because 
it  means  the  useless  impoverishment  of  life;  to  God, 
because  it  implies  that  the  mere  suffering  of  body,  or 
the  denial  of  reason,  can  in  themselves  please  Him. 
Yet  this  is  the  besetting  temptation,  which  asceticism 
has  never  been  able  to  avoid.  To  elevate  self-denial 
into  an  end  in  itself,  opens  the  door  to  many  evils  of 
creed  and  of  life,  and  degrades  religion;  and  yet  to 
so  elevate  self-denial  into  an  end,  either  wholly  or 
partially,  is  the  position  of  the  ascetic  ideal.  The 
method  insisted  on,  as  can  be  seen  from  any  book  of 
ascetic  devotion,  is,  Deny  yourself  every  satisfaction, 
deny  the  eyes  delight  in  seeing,  the  tongue  the  pleasure 
of  speech,  the  palate  what  it  likes,  the  ears  the  music 
of  man  and  the  song  of  birds,  the  body  all  ease  and 
comfort ;  and  the  more  complete  this  denial  is,  the  more 


FAILURE  OF  THE  ASCETIC  IDEAL  209 

meritorious  is  the  exercise,  and  the  more  pleasing  the 
sacrifice  is  to  God. 

The  very  half  truth  in  it  makes  its  inherent  false- 
ness the  more  dangerous.  A  religious  man  must  deny 
himself  many  things  of  ear  and  eye  and  tongue.  He 
must  often  renounce  pleasure ;  and  all  this  is  true,  even 
to  men  who  have  no  religious  ideal,  but  who,  like  the 
self-contained  culturists,  have  any  high  purpose  at  all. 
We  do  not  need  to  be  told  the  duty  and  obligation  of 
self-denial  by  any  anchorite  of  old,  or  by  the  weak  de- 
votionalists  of  to-day,  who  echo  faintly  the  anchorites' 
creed  without  the  courage  to  follow  their  practice.  It 
comes  to  every  earnest  man,  and  certainly  it  comes 
with  forceful  insistence  to  every  sincere  Christian  soul, 
who  knows  that  he  must  bend  to  a  cross  if  he  would 
follow  his  Master.  He  knows  he  must  give  up  if  he 
would  be  true  to  himself,  as  well  as  true  to  Him.  But 
even  where  self-mortification  may  seem  to  be  most 
necessary,  it  must  never  be  for  its  own  sake.  Sacrifice 
can  have  no  justification  whatever,  and  must  be  cursed 
with  futility,  except  as  it  is  undertaken  for  a  higher 
purpose.  Self-denial  is  always  a  relative  thing,  either 
relative  to  some  good  of  self,  or  relative  to  some  good 
of  others.  In  the  first  case,  when  it  is  in  some  legiti- 
mate self-interest,  it  is  designed  to  minister  to  some 
form  of  culture,  some  clearer  mental  enlightenment, 
or  some  deeper  moral  discipline,  or  some  richer  spirit- 
ual blessing — which  means  that  it  is  for  the  sake  of 
man's  own  best  life,  for  a  more  attractive  development, 
for  a  higher  culture.  Christ's  teaching,  even  in  the 
passages  which  seem  most  an  encouragement  to  asceti- 
cism, is  that  it  is  better  to  pluck  out  an  eye  or  cut  off 


210  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

a  hand  than  to  allow  the  whole  body  to  perish,  that  it 
is  therefore  for  the  sake  of  the  larger  and  higher  life. 
And  if  any  form  of  self-culture  taken  by  itself  fails, 
as  we  have  shown  it  does  fail,  how  much  more  must 
the  ascetic  ideal  fail,  since  it  is  only  a  means  towards 
a  means ! 

Following  on  the  initial  mistake,  which  elevates  what 
at  the  best  can  only  be  a  means  into  an  end  in  itself, 
it  omits  elements  from  the  moral  ideal,  which  are  neces- 
sary to  keep  it  sane  and  sweet,  such  as  the  place  of 
pleasure.  Men  have  instinctively  felt  that  happiness 
must  somehow  be  associated  with  whatever  is  looked 
on  as  the  great  end  of  human  life ;  since  so  many  things 
in  the  world  are  capable  of  giving  pleasure,  and  even 
the  necessary  purposes  of  nature  hold  out  bribes  of 
pleasure,  or  at  least  of  freedom  from  pain.  It  is,  for 
example,  for  the  maintenance  of  life  that  food  should 
be  taken,  and  nature  manages  to  secure  her  purpose 
by  making  it  on  the  whole  a  pleasure  to  eat.  In  vari* 
ous  ways  pleasure  is  put  before  us  as  a  sort  of  lure  to 
lead  us  to  do  certain  things,  so  that  it  seems  natural 
for  man  to  consider  among  other  things  how  a  certain 
course  will  affect  his  happiness.  And  though  men  early 
discovered  that  to  make  pleasure  the  aim  of  life  was 
a  sure  way  to  deprive  it  of  all  true  joy,  still  they  have 
never  given  up  the  innate  assurance  that  happiness 
must  at  least  be  included  in  man's  chief  end.  It  throws 
the  whole  providence  of  God  into  utter  confusion  to 
imagine  that  happiness  in  itself  is  evil,  and  that  moral 
good  implies  its  eradication. 

It  was  the  early  faith  of  Israel  that  righteousness 
inevitably  produced  prosperity,  that  there  was  complete 
correspondence  between  the  moral  life  and  the  outward 


FAILURE  OF  THE  ASCETIC  IDEAL  211 

government  of  the  world.  They  looked  with  assurance 
to  see  the  wicked  wither  away,  and  to  see  the  good  man 
send  his  roots  deep  like  a  tree  and  spread  his  branches 
wide.  They  expected  a  happy  prosperous  life  for  the 
man  who  kept  the  divine  law,  and  walked  in  the  way 
of  the  commandments.  One  of  the  keenest  problems  of 
the  Bible  was  how  to  reconcile  this  seeming  axiom  of 
faith  with  the  facts  of  experience.  It  is  the  problem  of 
the  Book  of  Job,  and  of  some  of  the  finest  Psalms,^ 
arising  from  the  evident  knowledge  that  often  the  good 
man  suffers  and  the  evil  man  prospers.  They  could 
not  believe  that  this  apparent  contradiction  could  be 
real;  for,  if  the  world  is  governed  in  a  moral  way,  it 
was  to  be  expected  that  good  would  invariably  be  re- 
warded and  evil  be  punished. 

The  first  intuitive  faith  that  the  keeping  of  the  law 
brought  earthly  happiness  looked  too  much  on  the  sur- 
face ;  and  through  the  sore  struggle  to  account  for  the 
discrepancies  men  of  faith  were  driven  inward,  and 
religion  became  more  spiritual.  Yet  men  have  never 
given  up  the  belief  that  in  some  way  there  is  an  essential 
connection  between  the  two.  It  is  an  instinct  of  the 
heart  that  happiness  and  goodness  go  together,  that 
they  must,  if  God  be  reasonable,  and  certainly  must  if 
He  be  righteous.  It  is  a  commonplace  of  religious 
faith  that  righteousness  and  blessedness  are  in- 
separably united;  and  indeed  all  morality,  and  all  law. 
and  all  thinking,  are  based  on  it.  It  demoralises  both 
life  and  religion  to  believe  that  God  does  not  desire  the 
happiness  of  His  creatures,  just  as  surely  as  it  de- 
moralises life  and  religion  to  imagine  that  He  has  no 
higher  aim  for  them  than  that  they  should  be  happy. 

*£.  g.  Psalms  xxxvii.,  xlix,  Ixxiii. 


212  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

It  was  a  wise,  as  well  as  a  scriptural,  answer  which 
was  given  to  the  first  question  of  the  Westminster 
Shorter  Catechism  as  to  man's  chief  end,  "  Man's  chief 
end  is  to  glorify  God  and  to  enjoy  Him  for  ever."  It 
is  not  without  reason  that  spiritual  life  and  blessed- 
ness are  always  in  some  form  joined  together;  for 
goodness  and  happiness  were  not  meant  to  be  divided. 

To  separate  happiness  from  the  moral  ideal,  or  to 
make  happiness  itself  the  ideal,  each  result  in  fearful 
mistake.  It  does  not  come  within  our  scope  to  show 
the  fallacy  of  the  latter  of  these  alternatives,  though 
it  is  evident  that  to  make  happiness  the  end  cuts  away 
the  foundation  from  morality;  for  it  changes  law  into 
arbitrary  choice  according  to  personal  inclination.  In 
practice  it  leads  to  Epicureanism,  however  refined  the 
form  may  be.  We  can  see  what  havoc  it  must  make 
of  all  the  noblest  and  highest  qualities  in  man,  if  we 
say  that  there  is  nothing  better  than  happiness,  even 
though  we  safeguard  that  by  trying  to  show  how  much 
better  and  more  lasting  the  higher  pleasures  are  than 
the  lower  ones.  As  a  matter  of  experience  also  it  is 
found  that  the  pursuit  of  pleasure  is  doomed  to  dis- 
appointment, and  can  never  escape  from  what  Carlyle 
calls  that  inexorable  all-encircling  ocean  moan  of 
ennui.  ''  If  you  could  mount  to  the  stars,  and  do  yacht 
voyages  under  the  belts  of  Jupiter,  or  stalk  deer  on  the 
ring  of  Saturn,  it  would  still  begirdle  you."  ^ 

But  if  it  is  true  that  to  make  happiness  the  end  leads 
to  failure,  it  is  equally  true  that  to  leave  out  happiness 
from  the  moral  ideal  is  also  failure,  and  to  an  earnest 
man  it  must  mean  asceticism.  Asceticism  looks  upon 
pleasure  even  in  things  innocent  as  sin,  and  rightly  so, 

^Latter-Day  Pamphlets  \^ Jesuitism]. 


FAILURE  OF  THE  ASCETIC  IDEAL    213 

if  it  is  not  part  of  the  moral  ideal  for  a  man.  Logically, 
this  would  result  in  the  termination  of  all  human  so- 
ciety, and  indeed  of  human  life  itself.  Asceticism, 
which  set  itself  to  uproot  and  exterminate  certain 
natural  impulses,  could  not  help  looking  on  pleasure 
as  a  lure  to  trap  the  unwary  soul,  and  on  beauty  as  a 
temptation  of  the  devil. 

How  the  thought  works  out  we  see  from  Augustine, 
whom  we  quote,  because  with  his  keen  and  bold  in- 
tellect he  unbares  the  essential  principle  of  ascetic  dis- 
trust of  pleasure  as  such.  In  his  Confessions  he  dis- 
cusses the  temptations  which  come  to  him,  in  spite  of 
having  cut  himself  off  from  the  world  and  given  him- 
self wholly  to  God;  and  among  them  he  tells  us  his 
difficulties  concerning  music.  He  is  half  inclined  to 
condemn  it  in  its  use  in  the  Church  services,  because 
of  the  pleasure  it  gives  him.  "  Sometimes  I  wish. the 
whole  melody  of  sweet  music,  to  which  the  Psalms  of 
David  are  generally  set,  to  be  banished  from  my  ears, 
ay,  and  from  those  of  the  Church  itself."  ^  He  blames 
himself  for  letting  the  melody  please  him,  and  is  sus- 
picious of  the  emotions  created  by  the  music.  He  calls 
it  a  gratification  of  the  flesh,  that  he  should  find  more 
satisfaction  in  the  divine  words  when  they  are  sung 
with  a  sweet  and  accomplished  voice,  than  in  the  ordi- 
nary reading  of  the  words  themselves.  He  knows  it 
to  be  sin,  that  he  should  have  any  such  enjoyment. 
He  rather  approves  of  the  plan  of  Athanasius,  Bishop 
of  Alexandria,  who  partly  avoided  the  difficulty  by  a 
compromise,  and  made  the  reader  of  the  Psalm  intone 
with  so  slight  an  inflection  of  voice  that  it  was  more 
like  recitation  than  chanting.     Augustine  is  only  kept 

*  Confessions^  Bk,  x.  chap,  xxxiii. 


214  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

from  condemning  Church  music  altogether,  by  the 
memory  of  how  it  affected  him  before  he  was  a  Chris- 
tian, and  how  it  moved  him  towards  religion.  His 
faltering  conclusion  is,  "  Thus  I  hesitate  between  the 
danger  of  mere  enjoyment,  and  my  experience  of  their 
wholesomeness ;  and  I  am  more  drawn,  though  not 
now  declaring  an  irrevocable  opinion,  to  approve  of 
the  custom  of  chanting  in  Church,  that  so  by  the  de- 
light of  the  ears  the  weaker  minds  may  rise  to  the 
feeling  of  devotion.  Yet  when  it  befalls  me  to  be  more 
moved  with  the  singing  than  with  the  words  sung,  I 
confess  that  I  sin  grievously,  and  then  I  would  prefer 
not  to  hear  the  chanter."  His  dilemma  is  created  by 
the  fact  that  the  music  is  useful  in  impressing  others 
to  enter  religion;  otherwise  he  would  condemn  it,  as 
far  as  he  is  concerned. 

It  is  the  same  with  pleasant  odours,^  though  these 
do  not  trouble  him  much,  as  they  do  not  represent 
any  great  attraction ;  but  pleasant  sights  are  a  greater 
difficulty  than  even  the  musical  temptation,  since  they 
are  more  constant.  The  eyes  love  fair  and  varied 
forms,  and  bright  and  pleasing  colours,  and  the  light 
all  through  the  day  suffuses  everything,  charming 
him  with  its  varied  play,  even  when  he  is  not  thinking 
of  it.  He  resists  these  seductions  of  the  eyes,  though 
he  confesses  that  often  he  is  ensnared ;  for  "  that  cor- 
poreal light,  of  which  I  speak,  seasoneth  the  life  of  this 
world  for  her  blind  lovers  with  an  enticing  and  dan- 
gerous sweetness."  ^  And  of  course  the  numberless 
things  made  by  various  arts  and  crafts,  if  made  more 
beautiful  than  is  necessary,  exceeding  moderate  use 

*  Confessions,  Bk.  x.  chap,  xxxii. 
*  Ibid.,  chap.  xxxv. 


FAILURE  OF  THE  ASCETIC  IPEAL   215 

and  all  pious  meaning,  only  add  to  the  enticements 
of  the  eyes — to  say  nothing  of  pictures  and  statuary. 
Augustine,  with  his  strong  and  spiritual  mind  did 
have  a  glimmering  of  the  great  truth  that  those  beau- 
tiful things,  which  are  conveyed  through  men's  souls 
to  the  hands  of  artificers,  come  from  the  Beauty  which 
is  above  our  souls ;  but  his  deep-rooted  asceticism  could 
not  let  him  rest  there  in  that  noble  thought,  and  his 
last  word  is  that  his  steps  are  entangled  with  these 
beauties,  and  he  appeals  to  God  to  pluck  him  out. 

The  same  deadly  temptation  lurks  in  the  curiosity, 
or  appetite  for  knowing,  which  he  classes  as  "  lust  of 
the  eyes,"  since  the  eyes  are  chief  among  the  senses 
as  sources  of  knowledge.  This  curiosity,  which  we 
to-day  would  honour  as  the  mother  of  science,  is  to 
him  full  of  snares  and  perils,  and  it  is  his  joy  that  he 
has  cut  much  of  it  away,  and  driven  it  from  his  heart. 
He  is  glad  to  think  that  he  does  not  now  care  to 
know  the  transits  of  the  stars,  and  has  ceased  to 
desire  the  sights  of  the  theatre;  but  he  is  not  quite 
easy  in  conscience,  since,  though  he  would  not  go  to  a 
circus  to  see  a  dog  course  a  hare,  yet  if  by  chance  he 
saw  it  happen  in  a  field,  he  is  not  certain  but  that 
the  sport  would  divert  his  mind  from  some  great 
subject  of  thought,  and  he  would  sin  in  the  inclina- 
tion of  his  mind. 

Naturally,  his  difficulty  is  most  of  all  with  the 
pleasures  of  the  palate.  He  must  eat  if  he  would 
live;  and  if  he  eat  he  cannot  avoid  feeling  the  satis- 
faction of  taste.  It  is  no  question  with  him  of  gluttony 
or  drunkenness,  which  would  be  impossible  to  him, 
and  which  of  course  he  would  condemn,  as  every 
moralist  must,  on  grounds  of  excess.     He  is  troubled 


2i6  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

by  the  fact  that  there  should  be  any  pleasure  at  all  in 
such  a  thing  as  eating.  He  wants  to  eat  only  for 
the  necessary  care  of  body,  for  health's  sake,  that  he 
may  do  his  work ;  and  he  finds  his  very  fasting  a  snare ; 
for  after  fasting,  while  he  is  passing  from  the  dis- 
comfort of  emptiness  to  the  content  of  satisfaction,  he 
is  only  adding  to  the  pleasure  of  eating.  ''  And  though 
health  be  the  cause  of  eating  and  drinking,  yet  a  dan- 
gerous enjoyment  waiteth  thereon  like  a  lackey,  and 
oftentimes  endeavours  to  precede  it,  so  as  to  be  the 
real  cause  of  what  I  say  I  do,  or  wish  to  do,  only 
for  health's  sake."  ^  God  has  taught  him,  he  asserts, 
that  he  should  set  himself  to  take  food  only  as  physic, 
but  there  is  this  terrible  difficulty  of  holding  the  reins 
of  the  throat,  which  would  be  a  simple  matter,  if  he 
could  only  hold  them  so  tight  as  to  dispense  with 
food  altogether. 

We  have  illustrated  this  point  at  such  length  from 
Augustine,  because  he  is  so  frank  in  his  statement 
of  the  difficulties  of  the  ascetic  theory,  and  so  cour- 
ageous in  accepting  the  consequences  which  the  theory 
involves.  We  see  here  the  fatal  introspection,  which 
ever  goes  hand  in  hand  with  asceticism,  and  which 
induces  a  morbid  and  unnatural  life.  Instead  of  assist- 
ing in  the  task  of  quelling  the  senses,  it  only  hinders, 
for  it  lays  the  stress  in  the  wrong  place.  Instead  of 
freeing  the  mind  from  the  engrossments  of  sense,  it 
only  clogs  it  the  more,  enhancing  the  powers  of  the 
senses.  Persistent  suppression  of  our  impulses  and 
sensibilities  creates  a  condition  of  disease.  The  child, 
who  is  ever  held  down  by  a  system  of  repression, 
loses   the   natural   buoyancy   of   mind,   and   becomes 

*  Confessions,  Bk.  x.  chap.  xxxi. 


FAILURE  OF  THE  ASCETIC  IDEAL    217 

morbid,  living  under  a  leaden  sky.  This  pathetic  sight 
is  common  enough  in  child  life,  due  sometimes  even  to 
over-education  through  the  folly  of  guardians,  who  do 
not  realise  that  happy  play  is  part  of  a  child's  education 
and  who  do  not  see  that  the  loss  of  a  joyful  childhood 
can  be  made  up  by  no  subsequent  advantages,  even  if 
their  system  did  give  these  advantages. 

The  method  of  repression  in  moral  discipline,  so 
vividly  illustrated  by  Augustine,  often  also  shows  its 
failure  by  the  terrible  reactions  which  occur.  Men  like 
Augustine  are  saved  from  such  by  their  passionate 
love  of  God,  and  by  their  absorbing  work,  and  by 
their  intellectual  activity;  but  many  are  the  instances 
of  moral  relapse  in  the  stories  of  the  desert  saints, 
and  of  those  whose  asceticism  was  even  more  logical 
than  Augustine's.  The  very  temptations  which  drove 
men  to  adopt  extreme  measures  for  their  extirpation, 
seem  to  be  strengthened  by  the  treatment.  Nature 
revenges  herself  for  the  acts  of  violence  done  against 
her.  The  natural  inclinations,  which  cannot  be  com- 
pletely suppressed,  are  often  driven  into  mean,  and 
sometimes  into  evil,  channels.  The  attempt  to  turn  the 
current  of  Nature  back  on  herself  only  dams  up  the 
waters,  to  break  out  somewhere  else  and  devastate  the 
life.  The  terrible  stories  of  awful  fights  with  devils, 
and  the  deadly  assaults  of  the  old  passions,  in  the 
life  of  St.  Anthony  and  others,  illustrate  the  truth 
that  their  method,  instead  of  reducing  temptation, 
only  creates  it.  If  Anthony  had  lived  an  active  life 
in  some  worthy  work,  many  of  his  temptations  would 
never  have  troubled  him  at  all.  Idle  self-meditation 
makes  a  man  brood  on  his  evil  thoughts,  and  chains 
his  mind  to  them.    It  was  the  recognition  of  this,  which 


21 8  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

is  the  reason  why  in  all  the  rules  of  the  great  monastic 
orders  labour  was  enforced. 

We  also  clearly  see  that  a  theory  like  Augustine's, 
which  looks  on  the  ordinary  pleasures  and  enjoyments 
of  life  as  in  themselves  sinful,  would  mean  self-mur- 
der if  carried  to  its  logical  issue.  To  make  pleasure 
essentially  antagonistic  to  the  moral  ideal  brings  life  to 
a  standstill.  And  on  the  same  ground  we  should 
as  surely  starve  the  mind,  or  the  soul,  as  the  body. 
Life  is  not  made  any  easier  for  us  by  a  general  doctrine 
of  self-denial;  for  the  question  arises,  How  far? 
Where  are  we  to  draw  the  line,  if  we  are  to  draw  any 
line  ?  Must  we  only  deny  our  senses  what  they  seem  to 
crave  as  legitimate  satisfaction?  If  pleasure  is  a  fatal 
objection,  can  it  logically  be  limited  to  the  pleasure  of 
sense?  Must  we  not  also  deny  the  pleasures  of 
thought  to  our  mind,  our  intellectual  faculties?  for 
sm  is  as  common  there  as  in  the  body,  and  is  far 
more  subtle.  Must  we  even  go  further  (and  if  not, 
why  not?),  and  deny  ourselves  the  very  highest  things 
in  our  nature — affection,  conscience,  sympathy,  the 
pleasures  which  undoubtedly  result,  say  from  the 
exercise  of  benevolence? 

The  right  view  of  this  question  of  pleasure  is  the 
Biblical  view,  that  there  is  a  true  and  legitimate  de- 
sire for  happiness,  provided  that  if  we  zvill  the  end 
we  also  will  the  true  means.  We  need  to  recognise  that 
happiness  is  inseparable  from  character;  that  is,  we 
must  not  desire  to  be  happy,  without  deserving  to 
be  happy.  "  Morality  is  properly  not  the  doctrine 
how  we  should  make  ourselves  happy,  but  how  we 
should  become  worthy  of  happiness.  It  is  only  when 
religion  is  added  that  there  also  comes  in  the  hope  of 


FAILURE  OF  THE  ASCETIC  IDEAL   219 

participating  some  day  in  happiness,  in  proportion  as 
we  have  endeavoured  to  be  not  unworthy  of  it."  ^  Re- 
ligion thus  gives  its  seal  to  the  natural  craving  for 
happiness,  and  at  the  same  time  saves  it  from  the 
dangers  which  give  excuse  for  the  ascetic  distrust  of 
it.  Religion  points  to  ethical  happiness,  the  pleasure 
which  flows  from  moral  effort,  as  distinguished  from 
mere  animal  enjoyment.  Such  ethical  happiness,  in- 
finitely higher  as  it  is  than  physical  pleasure,  must  not 
be  made  the  end  of  life.  We  are  not  to  seek  the  highest 
life  for  the  sake  of  happiness.  Nothing  will  so  quickly 
kill  true  religion  as  to  embrace  it  for  the  sake  of  re- 
ward; virtue  for  any  kind  of  loaves  and  fishes  is 
not  virtue  made  perfect,  but  only  prudential  calcula- 
tion. Morality  needs  to  be  free,  spontaneous,  not  blind 
obedience  to  a  rule  on  the  one  side,  nor,  on  the  other 
side,  a  choice  of  alternatives  based  on  which  is  likely 
to  pay  best,  but  willing  submission  to  the  dictates  of  the 
highest.  This  is  the  great  truth,  which  gives  grounds 
for  the  ascetic  distrust  of  pleasure  in  itself. 

At  the  same  time,  virtue  alone  can  bring  true  and 
permanent  joy.    It  is  an  assured  truth,  as  Mill  asserts, 
that   the   higher  pleasures   are   more  satisfying   and 
more  enduring  than  lower  ones.     Every  one  able  to 
judge  will  admit  that  intellectual  and  artistic  pleas- 
ures are  of  finer  quality  than  any  physical  enjoyment ; 
and  this  is  equally  true  of  spiritual  blessedness.   Therein 
is  a  joy  of  the  Lord  which  is  the  strength  of  life;  a 
perfect  satisfaction  of  heart,  of  which  the  worldling  \v 
cannot  even  dream ;  a  fountain  of  peace  and  joy,  which  ) 
the  broken  cisterns  of  earth  cannot  give  to  the  thirsty  i 
lips  that  seek  them.     The  Bible  is  full  of  Beatitudes, 

*  Kant,  Dialectic  of  Pure  Practical  Reason,  p.  271. 


220  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

asserting  that,  while  no  true  self-surrender  can  be 
made  for  happiness,  yet  self -surrender  does  open  the  j 
door  to  happiness;  and  that  therefore  we  cannot  \ 
separate  joy  from  the  Christial  ideal.  .  The  ascetic  mis- 
take in  this  region  is  an  artificial  division  of  human 
life,  which  excludes  happiness  on  what  is  deemed  the 
lower  levels  as  inherently  sinful.  Christ's  teaching, 
on  the  contrary,  is  that  if  we  seek  first  the  kingdom 
of  God  and  His  righteousness,  if  we  submit  to  the  law 
of  holiness  and  the  law  of  love,  all  the  other  things 
are  added,  and  take  their  rightful  place.  Even  the 
things  that  the  Gentiles  seek  come,  without  wasting 
the  life  in  the  vain  pursuit  of  them — *'  He  giveth  it 
His  beloved  in  sleep."  ^  He  does  not  shut  the  door 
of  the  world's  beauty  and  truth  on  us.  He  does  not 
condemn  as  evil  the  aims  which  are  so  common  among 
men,  the  desire  for  happiness,  the  desire  for  knowl- 
edge, the  love  of  beauty  and  art.  He  simply  says  they 
are  not  first.  He  says,  Seek  the  highest,  and  in  seeking 
the  highest  every  true  function  of  life  will  be  performed 
and  every  true  instinct  satisfied.  If  we  seek  the 
highest  all  else  worth  having  is  ours ;  if  we  seek  after 
God,  God's  world  will  not  fail  u§. 

The  truth  of  the  ascetic  position  on  this  question  is 
that  happiness,  either  as  an  ideal  for  self,  or  even  for 
others,  is  not  the  true  foundation  of  ethics.  A  man 
must  be  willing  to  do  without  happiness,  must  put 
duty  first  at  all  costs,  must  sometimes  choose  self- 
sacrifice  so  complete  that  there  seems  no  room  for 
earthly  happiness  in  it.  Yet  happiness  is  a  principle 
which  cannot  be  omitted,  without  perverting  our  whole 
view  of  life,  and  leading  to  the  false  and  strained  mor- 
*Ps.  cxxvii.  2  (R.  v.,  margin). 


FAILURE  OF  THE  ASCETIC  IDEAL   221 

bidness  we  have  noticed  from  Augustine's  great  book. 
Nflnatural  impulse  is  inherently  wrong.  It  may  be  out  ' 
of  place,  inappropriate  in  time,  diseased  in  its  formS, 
uncontrolled  and  lawless  in  its  activities ;  and  for  these 
reasons  it  needs  to  be  held  in  the  grip  of  a  consecrated 
will,  and  it  makes  demands  for  self-denial  and  complete 
control;  but  in  itself  it  is  not  essentially  sinful.  To 
hold  this  is  a  virtual  denial  of  the  divine  providence 
of  the  world.  This  is  one  of  the  causes  of  the  failure 
of  the  ascetic  ideal.  It  is  such  an  attitude,  expressed 
or  latent,  which  has  given  cause  for  the  reproach  that 
the  world  should  be  impoverished,  by  Christian 
thought  and  effort  being  so  much  relegated  to  another 
sphere  than  the  practical.  The  reproach  has  grounds 
in  history  from  all  forms  of  withdrawal  from  the 
world,  and  all  methods  of  repression  used  to  reach 
holiness.  We  must  take  the  side  of  men  of  the  world 
in  their  protest  against  such  an  interpretation  of  the 
demands  of  religion,  though  perhaps  for  different 
reasons  than  theirs.  Religion  does  not  look  on  the 
things  on  the  earth  as  sinful  in  themselves,  even  when 
it  points  away  from  them  to  things  above.  St.  Paul 
often  states  his  position  in  such  words  as  "  All  things 
are  lawful  unto  me,  but  all  things  are  not  expedient 
(profitable)  ;  all  things  are  lawful  unto  me,  but  I  will 
not  be  brought  under  the  power  of  any."  ^  This  is  the 
Christian  attitude,  which  will  not  be  brought  under 
the  power  of  any,  which,  in  the  interests  of  the  soul, 
will  even  shrink  from  no  necessary  self-denial.  While 
it  asserts  that  the  only  worthy  end  for  man  is  one 
above  sense,  and  sees  that  a  life  concerned  only  with 
things  on  the  earth  is  futile,  even  though  it  may  not 

*  I  Cor.  vi.  12.    Cf.  I  Cor.  x.  23. 


:nt\ 
'W\\ 

Via  I 


222  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

be  sinful  in  a  gross  way ;  it  nevertheless  refuses  to  look 
upon  the  work  of  God's  hands  as  evil.  If  on  the  one 
hand  the  worldliness,  which  seeks  to  fill  the  deep  heart 
of  man  with  things  of  sense,  which  never  reaches  out 
hands  of  desire  towards  the  unseen  and  eternal,  is  a 
tragic  failure;  so  on  the  other  hand  the  other-world- 
liness,  which  flees  from  the  duties  and  ties  of  earth, 
which  slips  off  from  the  burden  of  being  a  man,  is  no 
less  a  failure,  though  it  be  in  the  supposed  interests 
of  sanctity. 

Another  mistake  in  the  ascetic  conception  of  the 
moral  ideal  is  the  thought  that  abstinence  is  neces- 
sarily a  higher  virtue  than  temperance.  Abstinence^ 
even  from  things  recognised  to  be  lawful,  will  often 
be  a  man's  duty,  because  of  weakness  in  himself,  or 
because  of  some  higher  duty  towards  others.  There 
will  always  be  room  for  a  self-denial,  which  men  of 
the  world  would  call  quixotic  and  unnecessary.  Com'^ 
plete  abstinence  is  certainly  a  safer  way  to  pursue  in 
things  that  are  doubtful,  either  because  there  happens' 
to  be  a  great  deal  of  evil  associated  with  the  particular] 
things  good  in  themselves,  or  for  example's  sake,  toj 
save  the  young  or  the  weak  from  temptation.  But  it 
is  a  mistaken  idea  of  virtue  to  rank  the  mere  absti- 
nence above  a  temperate  and  controlled  use  of  the 
material.  The  mere  escape  from  temptation  cannot  be 
compared  with  the  virile  mastery  of  the  conditions 
of  life.  Such  an  escape  may  be  only  a  sign  of  moral 
feebleness,  and  of  incapacity  to  keep  a  true  balance 
amid  the  difficulties  of  the  world.  The  temptations 
involved  in  the  possession  of  earthly  property  can  no 
doubt  be  avoided  by  giving  it  away,  like  St.  Anthony; 


FAILURE  OF  THE  ASCETIC  IDEAL    223 

but  even  the  deepest  of  the  temptations  may  remain 
if  the  desire  is  retained;  and  it  will  always  be  a  nobler 
thing  to  use  property  wisely  and  graciously  as  a  stew- 
ard of  the  grace  of  God,  than  to  bundle  over  the  bur- 
den to  another.  It  is  in  the  battle  that  soldiers  are 
best  made,  and  through  struggle  that  strength  is  got, 
and  by  the  stress  and  strain  of  life  that  character  is 
built.  Character,  like  the  oak,  hardens  its  fibre  in  the 
storm.  There  may  be  moral  cowardice  in  what  looks 
like  beautiful  self-renunciation,  the  cowardice  which 
is  afraid  of  life  and  its  stem  conditions.  Milton's 
noble  words  are  applicable  here :  "  I  cannot  praise  a 
fugitive  and  cloistered  virtue  unexercised  and  un- 
breathed,  that  never  sallies  out  and  seeks  her  adver- 
sary, but  slinks  out  of  the  race,  where  that  immortal 
garland  is  to  be  run  for,  not  without  dust  and  heat. 
Assuredly  we  bring  not  innocence  into  the  world,  we 
bring  impurity  much  rather;  that  which  purifies  us  is 
trial,  and  trial  is  by  what  is  contrary."  ^  He  thinks 
the  poet  Spenser  a  better  teacher  than  Scotus  or 
Aquinas;  for  he  makes  his  true  knight  Guion,  rep- 
resenting Temperance,  pass  unscathed  through  all 
the  temptations  which  assail  temperance,  the  cave  of 
Mammon  and  the  bower  of  earthly  bliss,  that  he  might 
see  and  know,  and  yet  abstain.^ 

The  evasion  of  natural  responsibilities  is  not  vic- 
tory; and  it  will  ever  remain  a  higher  task  to  bring 
the  complete  round  of  human  experience  into  the 
obedience  of  Christ.  To  refuse  the  ties  of  marriage 
and  those  that  link  us  to  our  fellows,  to  refuse  the 
obligations  of  the  common  business  of  the  world,  is 

*  Milton,  Areopagitica. 
'Faerie  Queen,  Bk.  11.  canto  7. 


224  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

indeed  to  find  a  certain  kind  of  safety;  but  it  is  at 
the  expense  of  the  moral  discipline,  which  these  are 
calculated  to  afford.  We  are  acted  on  persistently  by 
the  forces  of  our  day,  and  are  held  fast  in  the  meshes 
of  the  social  net,  mixed  up  in  our  complex  civilisation, 
with  the  spirit  of  the  world  ceaselessly  playing  on  us ; 
but  these  are  precisely  the  conditions  that  create 
character,  and  that  test  of  what  stuff  we  are  made.  If 
we  were  not  so  sensitive  to  our  environment,  if  we 
were  not  so  easily  affected  by  the  tone  and  colour  of 
our  spiritual  surroundings,  life  would  not,  it  is  true,  be 
such  a  perilous  venture  for  us;  but  the  venture  must 
be  made,  if  character  is  to  be  developed  and  strength- 
ened. Clement,  who  had  in  many  respects  by  far  the 
sanest  and  the  most  truly  spiritual  mind  of  all  the 
early  Fathers,  appreciated  the  value  of  ordinary  life 
as  the  true  sphere  of  Christian  activity.  He  opposed 
the  tendency  of  his  time  to  magnify  celibacy,  and 
pointed  to  married  life  as  not  only  the  normal  life, 
which  it  of  course  must  be,  but  even  the  more  honour- 
able. "  The  genuine  Christian  has  the  Apostles  for  his 
example ;  and  in  truth  it  is  not  in  the  solitary  life  one 
shows  himself  a  man;  but  the  victory  is  his,  who  as  a 
husband  and  father  of  a  family,  withstands  all  the 
temptations  that  assail  him  in  providing  for  wife  and 
children,  servants  and  substance,  without  allowing 
himself  to  be  turned  from  the  love  of  God.  The  man 
with  no  family  escapes  many  temptations;  but  as  he 
has  none  save  himself  to  care  for,  he  is  of  less  worth 
than  the  man  who  has  more  to  disturb  him,  it  is  true, 
in  the  work  of  his  own  salvation,  but  accomplishes 
more  m  social  life,  and  in  truth  presents  in  his  own 


FAILURE  OF  THE  ASCETIC  IDEAL    225 

case  a  miniature  of  providence  itself."  ^  It  is  true  that 
there  are  cases  and  times,  when  a  man,  who  has  given 
no  hostages  to  fortune,  who  is  unhampered  by  such 
ties  as  marriage,  may  be  able  to  do  a  special  piece  of 
work,  may  volunteer  more  easily  for  any  forlorn 
hope,  undistracted  by  the  cares  and  embarrassments  in- 
volved in  all  human  relationships;  and  such  a  time 
was  the  early  centuries,  when  the  Christian  faith  some- 
times called  for  the  completest  sacrifice;  but  these 
arc  cases  of  practical  expediency,  and  not  of  ascetic 
principle. 

The  deepest  idea  at  the  root  of  asceticism  is,  as  we 
have  seen,  the  radically  false  conception  of  human 
nature,  as  a  soul  degraded  by  being  imprisoned  in 
sinful  matter.  The  attitude  is,  as  Origen  put  it  bluntly, 
that  all  the  evil  which  reigns  in  the  body  is  due  to  the 
five  senses. 2  From  this  position  it  is  natural  to  try 
to  limit  the  connection  even  if  it  cannot  be  altogether 
severed.  In  practice  asceticism  confines  sin  to  one  or 
two  sensuous  acts,  and  strenuously  proceeds  to  uproot 
the  impulses  which  produce  these  acts.  It  has  its 
origin  in  facts,  the  fact  of  sin,  and  the  duty  of  self- 
control;  but  it  takes  a  materialistic  conception  of 
both  of  these  facts.  It  sees  that  sin  is  the  ruin  of 
man,  but  it  looks  on  sin  as  not  essentially  a  spiritual 
evil.  It  sees  the  need  of  self-control,  but  it  seeks  this 
by  external  means,  by  methods  of  repression.     The 

^  Vide  Neander's  Church  History,  vol.  i.  section  3,  p.  383 
(T.  and  T.  Clark). 

"  Omne  vitium  quod  re  gnat  in  cor  pore  ex  quinque  sensibus 
pendet. 


226  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

false  diagnosis  vitiates  the  method  of  cure.  It  con- 
fuses sin  with  sense,  attributes  evil  to  the  animal 
desires,  and  naturally  proceeds  to  reduce  the  connec- 
tion with  sense.  It  fails,  however,  to  evict  sin,  because 
it  does  not  go  to  the  source.  It  does  not  follow  that 
sin  is  made  less,  even  when  sense  is  weakened,  and 
when  sensuous  temptation  is  immensely  limited.  The 
old  roue  has  not  become  virtuous  because  his  passions 
are  burned  out.  He  ceases  to  commit  some  of  the 
sins  that  formerly  held  him  in  thrall,  but  the  cessation 
is  merely  because  his  senses  have  weakened  in  their 
relish  for  those  particular  sins,  not  because  he  is  a 
stronger  moral  being.  Similarly,  it  might  be  possible 
by  all  manner  of  self-inflicted  austerities  to  so  subject 
the  flesh  that  a  special  temptation  might  even  cease, 
without  the  process  representing  any  moral  advance. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  we  do  not  escape  temp- 
tation, by  cutting  connection  with  the  sordidness  and 
grossness  of  ordinary  life.  This  was  the  experience 
of  all,  that  temptation  was  not  shut  out  by  convent 
bars.  Nilus,  himself  a  monk,  said  of  another  monk, 
who  to  escape  inward  temptation  fled  from  his  cell, 
and  ran  about  from  one  place  to  another,  "  He  will 
change  his  place,  but  not  the  anguish  of  his  heart.  He 
will  rather  nourish  and  increase  his  temptations."  The 
initial  thought,  that"  flesh  is  the  seat  of  sin,  can  be 
easily  seen  to  be  a  fallacy.  It  cannot  be  so,  since  for 
one  thing  there  are  clearly  many  sins,  which  are  not 
prompted  by  the  animal  nature  at  all,  so  that,  even  if 
the  flesh  were  beaten  into  subjection  on  these  points, 
the  great  battle  against  sin  could  hardly  be  said  to  be 
begun.  There  would  still  stand  all  of  the  mind,  and 
the  imagination,  and  subtler  spiritual  sins,  entrench- 


FAILURE  OF  THE  ASCETIC  IDEAL   227 

ing  themselves  in  the  citadel  of  life.  Pride,  envy, 
hatred,  for  instance,  are  not  touched  by  the  material 
methods  of  ascetic  treatment.  We  have  to  go  deeper 
for  the  true  diagnosis  of  sin,  and  deeper  also  for  the 
true  cure.  It  is  like  trying  to  deal  with  a  conflagra- 
tion by  putting  out  the  sparks,  without  touching  the 
fire,  the  source  of  the  sparks.  Sin  is  not  a  physical 
thing,  and  its  cure  cannot  be  effected  by  physical 
means.  It  is  the  doom  of  asceticism  that  it  sets  itself 
to  an  impossible  task. 

It  is  chiefly  a  failure  in  method  therefore.  By 
using  only  repression  and  restraint,  it  withdraws  at- 
tention from  the  true  seat  of  sin,  which  is  the  human 
heart,  and  transfers  it  to  what  is  really  external  to  the 
life.  To  have  as  weapons  only  negative  prohibitions, 
is  to  fight  a  losing  battle.  The  ascetic  method  is  but 
another  form  of  extemalism,  which  is  the  curse  of 
religion.  Though  it  seems  to  begin  in  contempt  for 
the  external  side  of  life,  as  a  matter  of  fact  its  fun- 
damental mistake  is  that  it  exaggerates  the  external. 
It  sets  too  much  stress  on  mere  surroundings ;  for  true 
life  is  possible  anywhere,  and  evil  is  not  confined  to 
particular  spots.  Temptations,  therefore,  are  not 
killed  by  creating  a  desert,  and  calling  it  peace.  Hu- 
mility may  be  found  on  the  steps  of  a  throne,  and 
spiritual  pride  can  kill  the  soul  of  a  solitary  desert 
saint,  or  the  hermit  on  a  pillar.  It  follows  that  the 
means  employed  are  futile,  being  purely  negative,  an 
outside  method  of  attacking  the  problem.  It  is  false 
to  make  virtue  consist  in  the  mere  denial  of  gratifica- 
tions which  our  nature  craves;  and  it  is,  to  say  the 
least,  a  calamity  to  look  upon  religion  as  a  sort  of 
moral  police  saying,  "  You  must  not  do  this."    Virtue, 


228  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

it  is  true,  will  always  have  a  negative  side;  religion 
will  always  seem  self-denial;  but  that  is  not  the 
essence  of  either  virtue  or  religion.  The  mere  thwart- 
ing of  desire  in  ourselves,  or  in  others,  may  mean  not 
a  single  inch  of  advance  in  true  virtue  or  true  religion. 
We  might  multiply  restrictions  a  thousandfold,  and  be 
as  far  off  from  the  desired  goal  as  ever.  The  external 
method  of  defence  is  futile,  for  it  can  never  cover  all 
the  ground. 

What  boots  it  at  one  gate  to  make  defence, 
And  at  another  to  let  in  the  foe, 
Effeminately  vanquished  ?  ^ 

We  can  see  how  true  this  is  in  other  spheres  of 
life,  as  well  as  in  religion.  The  ideal  of  the  state  is 
not  despotic  rule,  with  men  blindly  bending  to  au- 
thority, with  coercive  laws  beating  back  individual 
action  at  all  points ;  but  a  free  state,  where  citizens 
grow  up  in  political  liberty  amid  free  institutions. 
So  also,  the  ideal  of  education  is  not  dogmatic  teach- 
ing, which  treats  a  child  as  fit  only  to  be  hedged 
round  by  restrictions,  and  his  mind  to  be  cut  and 
shaped  to  pattern.  It  is  rather  the  drawing  out  of 
the  innate  capacity,  giving  each  pupil  freedom  to 
grow.  Both  in  the  state  and  in  education,  however 
perfect  they  may  be,  there  will  be  restraint,  restrictive 
laws  in  the  one  case,  and  rules  and  regulations  in  the 
other,  which  repress  wrong  tendencies ;  but  these  are 
not  the  end  either  of  the  state  or  of  education,  but 
are  merely  makeshifts  to  produce  the  ultimate 
freedom. 

*  Milton,  Samson  Agonistes. 


FAILURE  OF  THE  ASCETIC  IDEAL   229 

•Failure  dogs  the  heels  of  every  negative  method 
in  all  regions  of  life,  but  its  failure  is  nowhere  so 
signal  as  in  religion.  William  Blake  said  in  his  usual 
style  of  striking  paradox,  "  Men  are  admitted  into 
heaven,  not  because  they  have  curbed  and  governed 
their  passions,  or  have  no  passions,  but  because  they 
have  cultivated  their  understandings.  The  fool  shall 
not  enter  into  heaven,  let  him  be  never  so  holy."  ^  This 
is  the  extreme  opposite  of  the  position  of  the  ascetic 
ideal,  the  statement  of  the  gospel  of  culture  in  bold, 
defiant  outline.  The  truth  of  it  is  that  the  worth  of 
a  life  is  not  a  negative,  but  ever  a  positive,  value.  Life 
cannot  reach  completion  by  any  system  of  "  Thou  shalt 
not,"  however  extended.  Life  cannot  be  guided  by 
any  system  of  detailed  commandment  at  all.  The 
area  of  life  is  too  large  to  be  covered  by  rules;  for 
there  would  continually  arise  something,  which  could 
not  be  included  in  any  commandment.  Every  ascetic 
system  of  thought  and  practice  fails,  just  because  of 
the  external  way  of  approaching  the  problem,  confin- 
ing life  within  straight  lines,  imprisoning  it  in  rules. 

Because  of  this,  the  failure  is  more  marked  when 
the  experiment  is  tried  on  a  large  scale.  It  may  often 
seem  to  succeed  with  the  individual,  because  with  the 
individual  it  is  usually  self-chosen,  and  therefore 
carries  a  certain  moral  dynamic ;  but,  when  applied  to 
public  affairs,  its  failure  is  instant  and  sure.  Puritan- 
ism in  England,  in  spite  of  its  great  qualities,  and  its 
magnificent  services  to  the  community,  failed  for  the 
selfsame  reason,  because  it  was  too  much  a  mere 
negation,  not  only  in  its  protests  against  the  common 

*  Proverbs  of  Hell — Appendix  to  Marriage  of  Heaven  and 
Hell. 


230  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

enjoyments  of  men,  but  because  of  its  aloofness  from 
many  essential  interests,  and  its  isolation  from  hu- 
man history.  It  revolted  men,  who  were  keenly  sus- 
ceptible to  beauty,  and  to  the  charm  and  grace  of  life. 
It  looked  with  contempt,  or  with  fear,  on  all  natural 
inclinations,  and  on  the  love  of  the  beautiful — or  at 
least  gave  men  the  impression  that  it  did.  Its  attitude 
was  too  extreme  and  uncompromising.  It  had  cour- 
age and  stern  opposition  to  evil ;  it  hated  the  levity  and 
frivolity  of  so  many  classes  at  the  time,  and  hated  the 
sins  and  scandals  of  both  Church  and  State,  which 
indeed  produced  Puritanism;  but  its  essential  failure 
v/as  due  to  the  external  means  it  employed.  When 
morality  is  made  to  consist  in  rigid  adherence  to  laws 
and  customs,  it  ceases  to  be  true  morality,  and  when 
the  strong  hand  is  removed,  life  bounds  back  with  all 
the  greater  recoil.  Morality  must  be  a  living  spring 
of  action,  self-engendered  and  free,  or  it  will  decay. 

This  is  well  illustrated  by  the  history  of  all  Sump- 
tuary Laws,  which  different  States  used  to  pass  in 
a  panic  at  the  luxury  and  licence  of  life.  In  Rome, 
when  wealth  increased,  laws  were  passed  regulating 
the  cost  of  entertainments,  and  the  number  of  guests 
one  could  invite,  but  never  with  any  success  for  the 
reformation  of  morals.  In  England  there  were  many 
such  laws  down  to  the  time  of  the  Reformation,  regu- 
lating the  number  of  courses  that  were  permitted  at 
dinner  according  to  rank  and  degree,  and  the  kind 
of  dresses  people  were  allowed  to  wear,  also  accord- 
ing to  rank.  The  Scottish  Parliament  did  the  same  for 
the  dress  of  ladies,  quaintly  stating  that  it  was  for 
the  sake  of  "  the  puir  gentlemen  their  husbands  and 
fathers."     If  restraint  in  dress,  and  deportment,  and 


FAILURE  OF  THE  ASCETIC  IDEAL   231 

manner  of  living,  come  naturally  from  principle,  then 
it  is  well;  but  if  repression  in  these  things  is  only 
forced  on  people  from  without,  it  is  neither  good 
political  economy,  nor  good  morality.  Unless  by  way 
of  setting  a  standard,  and  so  gradually  creating  a  pub- 
lic conscience  on  such  subjects,  repressive  laws  really 
effect  nothing.  Besides,  it  is  always  a  practical  failure, 
human  nature  being  what  it  is.  Montaigne's  criticism 
of  Sumptuary  Laws  on  this  score  is  a  valid  one.  "  The 
way  by  which  our  laws  attempt  to  regulate  idle  and 
vain  expenses  in  meat  and  clothes  seems  to  be  quite 
contrary  to  the  end  designed.  The  true  way  would 
be  to  beget  in  men  a  contempt  for  silks  and  gold,  as 
vain,  frivolous,  and  useless;  whereas  we  augment  to 
them  the  honours,  and  enhance  the  value  of  such 
things,  which  surely  is  a  very  improper  way  to  create 
a  disgust.  For  to  enact  that  none  but  princes  shall 
eat  turbot,  shall  wear  velvet  or  gold  lace,  and  to  inter- 
dict these  things  to  the  people,  what  is  it  but  to  bring 
them  into  a  greater  esteem,  and  to  set  every  one 
more  agog  to  eat  and  wear  them  ?  "  ^  It  is  useless  to 
begin  at  the  circumference  of  life. 

The  mistake  of  all  forms  of  asceticism,  both  per- 
sonal and  social,  is  partly,  therefore,  a  mistake  as  to 
where  the  denial  is  needed.  Sin  is  much  more  than 
bodily  excess;  it  is  not  a  property  of  matter,  but  a 
condition  of  soul.  Worldliness  is  not  a  thing  of  local- 
ity, and  purity  is  not  a  negative  virtue.  A  man  may 
be  in  the  world  and  yet  not  of  it;  a  man  may  be  out 
of  the  world  and  yet  of  it.  akin  in  spirit,  held  in  its 
toils.  Sin  is  to  be  met  and  overcome  at  its  source, 
in  the  thought  of  the  mind,  in  the  imagination  of  the 

^Essays,  chap,  xxxiv.,  "  Of  Sumptuary  Laws." 


232  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

heart;  and  this  is  to  be  accompHshed  not  by  external 
curbing,  but  by  a  new  principle  of  life.  Opposed  to 
externalism  of  morals,  the  Christian  method  demands 
a  renewing  of  will,  producing  spontaneous  moral  em- 
ancipation. Instead  of  mere  negative  prohibitions,  it 
points  as  the  true  secret  to  the  purifying  of  the  inner 
life,  raising  it  into  a  higher  sphere,  where  the  lower 
temptations  can  get  no  foothold.  Instead  of  the  nega- 
tions it  presents  a  positive;  instead  of  rules  and  pre- 
cepts of  abstinence  it  offers  a  vital  principle,  which 
will  work  itself  out  in  all  the  details  of  life,  and  carry 
its  inspiring  force  to  every  region,  sanctifying  every 
part,  and  leaving  none  as  common  and  unclean.  This 
principle  of  life  expresses  itself  in  the  ordinary  rela- 
tions, in  the  social  duties  of  the  family  and  the  state. 
The  Christian  doctrine  of  self-sacrifice  even  finds 
its  true  sphere  there,  and  not  in  useless  asceticism. 

Beginning  at  the  centre,  the  whole  circle  will  be  per- 
vaded with  good,  right  to  the  circumference.  "  Walk 
in  the  spirit,  and  ye  shall  not  fulfil  the  lusts  of  the 
flesh,"  ^  is  St.  Paul's  alternative  to  the  fruitless  efforts 
after  external  holiness.  He  did  call  upon  his  converts 
as  part  of  the  ethical  implication  of  their  faith  to 
mortify  their  members  which  are  on  the  earth, ^  a  word 
which  was  often  read,  or  misread,  as  an  argument 
for  various  kinds  of  world-denial  and  renunciation; 
but  it  is  no  general  system  of  artificial  discipline  which 
he  commends  to  them,  and  no  glorification  of  the 
desert  as  a  school  for  saints.  He  goes  on  to  describe 
what  he  means,  giving  instances  of  the  kind  of  self- 
discipline  required.  It  is  not  a  statement  that  ordinary 
life  is  evil,  and  that  all  the  relations  and  environment 

*Gal.  A.  i6.  "Col.  iii.  5- 


FAILURE  OF  THE  ASCETIC  IDEAL    233 

in  which  we  are  placed  in  the  world  are  evil;  it  is  a 
call  to  resist  whatever  in  a  man's  life  is  opposed  to  the 
Christian  faith.  He  specifies  some  of  the  things  in 
those  who  have  been  taken  out  of  paganism,  which 
need  mortification,  *'  fornication,  uncleanness,  passion, 
evil  desire,  covetousness."  Repression,  renunciation, 
there  must  always  be.  A  man  must  have  his  nature 
under  the  curb,  and  must  master  his  soul.  Every  life 
knows  best  where  the  struggle  must  be.  To  one  it 
may  be  the  torment  of  some  passion,  which  needs  con- 
stant restraint ;  to  another  it  may  be  temper,  or  pride, 
or  a  tongue  hard  to  be  controlled ;  the  besetting  sin  of 
another  may  be  sloth,  or  sluggishness  of  nature.  It» 
is  there,  at  the  point  of  least  resistance,  the  true  self-j 
denial  must  be  applied.  But  the  method  which  the 
Apostle  gives  as  the  true  way  to  mortify  the  evil  d«-, 
sires,  is  to  set  the  affections  on  hig'her  things.^  J 

Growth,  not  restraint  by  itself,  is  the  true  method; 
not  by  crushing  the  lower,  but  by  quickening  the 
higher.  The  extinction  of  evil  by  a  process  of  evic- 
tion is  a  failure,  because  even  if  it  were  possible  there 
is  no  security  against  the  seven  worse  devils  taking 
up  abode  in  the  swept,  and  garnished,  but  empty 
loom.  The  spiritual  is  attained,  not  by  unnaturally 
crushing  the  natural,  but  by  disentangling  the  natural 
from  what  is  evil  in  it,  and  rising  above  it,  so  that  the 
higher  becomes  the  natural.  The  way  to  overcome 
is  not  by  a  policy  of  repression,  negativing  every 
impulse  as  it  arises,  denying  every  craving,  rooting 
out  every  desire.  Even  as  strategy  there  is  a  better 
way,  by  turning  the  enemy's  flank.  It  is  vain  to  try 
to  kill  evil  thought,  by  striving  to  empty  the  mind  of 

»  Col.  iii.  2. 


234  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

all  thought:  it  is  at  least  a  more  hopeful  method,  by 
fostering  every  thought  of  good,  by  filling  the  mind 
with  whatsoever  things  ajre  lovely,  and  true,  and 
good,  and  pure.  It  is  not  the  curb  we  need  so  much 
as  the  guiding  rein.  Even  as  a  policy  we  know  some- 
thing of  the  expulsive  power  of  a  new  affection,  in 
Dr.  Chalmers's  great  phrase.  A  noble  attachment 
will  give  a  man  power  to  repress  the  base,  as  no 
mere  coercive  means  will  do.  The  higher  motives,  if 
we  would  only  believe  it  in  dealing  with  other  men 
as  well  as  with  ourselves,  are  always  the  strongest. 
Esprit  de  corps  will  do  more  for  a  regiment  than  the 
lash.  A  high  sense  of  honour  will  save  a  man  from 
disgrace,  as  no  fear  of  punishment  can.  Christ's 
method  in  all  His  teaching  was  not  restriction  and 
negation.  He  often  showed  the  futility  of  cleansing 
the  outside  of  the  cup  and  the  platter,  and  denounced 
all  the  external  methods  of  seeking  holiness.  Inward- 
ness is  the  word  which  best  describes  His  method. 
He  again  and  again  pointed  to  the  heart  of  man,  as 
the  source  of  sin,  and  the  sphere  of  holiness,  and  the 
field  of  struggle ;  for  out  of  it  are  the  issues  of  hfe. 

In  the  next  two  chapters  other  indications  will  be 
given  of  the  inherent  weakness  of  the  ascetic  ideal, 
notably  that  it  creates  an  artificial  distinction  in  the 
ethical  standard,  making  two  grades  with  two  rules 
of  morality.  But  its  failure  is  already  sufficiently 
made  evident  for  the  reasons  given  above — first  that 
it  raises  into  an  end  what  can  only  be  justified  as  a 
means;  secondly,  that  it  leaves  out  an  essential  ele- 
ment of  the  moral  ideal,  happiness,  and  is  therefore 
led  to  look  upon  pain  as  in  itself  good;  further,  that 


FAILURE  OF  THE  ASCETIC  IDEAL    235 

it  makes  abstinence  a  higher  virtue  than  temperance, 
and  the  evasion  of  natural  responsibiHties  more  worthy 
than  the  mastery  of  the  temptations  involved  in  them ; 
and  lastly,  that  it  is  on  that  account  a  mistake  in 
method,  spending  its  force  on  external  and  repressive 
rules.  The  conclusion  we  have  so  far  arrived  at  is  that 
of  the  two  ideals,  that  of  culture  is  essentially  higher 
than  that  of  restraint,  in  spite  of  the  elements  of 
nobility  in  the  latter ;  since  culture  is  at  least  a  positive 
end,  and  can  be  made  to  include  restraint,  indeed  must 
to  some  extent  use  it  as  a  means  to  reach  its  full 
fruition. 


IX 

A  MEDIAEVAL  CONCEPTION  OF  SAINTHOOD 

A  FURTHER  evidence  of  the  harmful  legacy 
from  the  ascetic  ideal  is  to  be  found  in  the 
Church  idea  of  a  saint,  and  all  that  sprang 
from  it,  both  of  a  false  standard  of  holiness, 
and  of  errors  of  creed  and  worship.  The  primary  idea 
of  the  word  saint  means  pure,  clean,  ceremonially  or 
morally  consecrated  to  God.  In  the  Old  Testament  it  is 
applied  to  Israel  as  a  people,  as  "  Let  thy  priests  be 
clothed  with  righteousness,  and  let  thy  saints  shout  for 
joy."  ^  In  the  New  Testament  it  is  applied  to  the  whole 
Christian  Church,  to  the  members  of  the  Christian  com- 
munity generally.  It  is  assumed  of  all  who  profess  the 
Christian  name  that  they  are  consecrated  to  God,  and 
are  sanctified  by  the  Holy  Spirit.  It  sets  a  standard  for 
the  Church,  anticipating  the  ultimate  result,  as  it  were. 
The  Church  is  counted  holy,  and  at  the  same  time 
called  to  be  holy;  consecrated,  and  by  that  summoned 
to  the  consecrated  life.  We  cannot  over-estimate  what 
this  meant  to  the  early  Church  as  a  motive  for  her 
members  to  realise  their  exalted  ideal.  In  the  New 
Testament  the  word  Saints  is  never  used  exclusively 
of  certain  select  people,  a  sort  of  election  within  the 
election,  a  few  eminent  superior  Christians  who  have 
outshone  their  fellows  in  attainments  and  sanctity.  It 
always  expresses  the  commonalty  of  the  faith,  and  is 

*  Psalm  cxxxii.  9. 
336 


MEDIAEVAL  SAINTHOOD  237 

applied,  as  St.  Paul  often  does,  to  the  whole  Chris- 
tian community.  The  very  title  contained  a  moral 
dynamic,  fit  to  give  all  members  of  the  Church  pause, 
and  to  make  them  inquire  whether  they  were  living 
up  to  their  name,  whether  it  was  an  accurate  definition 
and  description  of  them.  It  made  holiness  an  essen- 
tial note  of  the  true  Church,  a  characteristic  by  which 
it  is  to  be  tested  and  known.  A  synonym  for  the 
Church  which  has  even  been  accepted  as  a  fair  defi- 
nition is  "  the  Saints,"  emphasising  holiness  as  a  req- 
uisite. The  righteousness  of  Christ's  disciples  must 
exceed  the  righteousness  of  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees, 
who  made  religion  itself  consist  of  righteousness.^ 
The  work  of  Christ  was  to  present  His  people  holy, 
and  unblamable,  and  unreprovable.^  The  name  by 
which  God  is  known  is  the  Holy  One,  and  His  people 
are  the  holy  brethren,  partakers  of  the  heavenly  call- 
ing.* It  follows  that  mistaken  ideas  of  what  holiness 
is  will  mean  mistaken  ideas  of  what  constitutes 
sainthood. 

Very  soon  in  the  history  of  the  Church  a  process 
set  in,  which  despoiled  the  word  of  its  meaning,  and 
also  robbed  the  thought  of  its  power.  It  came  to 
mean  the  exceptional  in  many  ways;  and  so  tests  of 
sainthood  were  introduced,  which  in  many  periods 
excluded  all  believers  whose  lives,  sometimes  for  con- 
science's sake  and  because  of  the  claims  of  duty,  could 
not  be  run  on  the  lines  of  approved  sainthood.  The 
Church  conception  of  a  saint  became  limited  and  de- 
fined to  a  class,  and  was  exclusively  referred  to  a 
select  few.  A  saint  came  to  mean  one  who  was  emi- 
nent for  the  Christian  qualities,  for  holiness  of  life,  and 

'Matt  V.  20.  *Col.  i.  22.  *Heb.  iii.  i. 


238  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

steadfastness  to  the  faith.  There  was  even  a  further 
degradation  of  the  idea  and  the  word,  when  it  was 
narrowed  still  more  to  mean  one  who  was  officially 
recognised  and  canonised  by  the  Church.  Ecclesiastical 
usage  early  restricted  it  to  those  exceptional  in  their 
virtues,  who  displayed  the  Christian  quaHties  in  a 
heroic  degree.  This  limitation  of  the  word  is  not 
confined  to  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  as  there  is 
a  common  use  of  it  among  Protestants,  which  has 
the  same  effect.  By  saint  is  often  meant  a  certain 
peculiar  type  of  faith  and  character — pietists,  mystics, 
and  men  who  show  a  weak  aloofness  from  the  great 
interests  of  the  world,  and  from  the  great  fight  of  faith 
with  the  world.  Thus  it  is  sometimes  used  with  a  sort 
of  sneer  in  it,  as  if  it  invariably  implied  weakness  of 
some  kind,  the  unpractical  feckless  man,  too  good  for 
the  world;  and  even  sometimes  the  word  connotes  hy- 
pocrisy. It  is  a  terrible  abasement  of  a  noble  word, 
and  is  caused  by  a  similar  process,  which  produced 
its  degradation  in  the  early  centuries.  The  root  of 
both  the  Roman  Catholic  and  the  modem  abuse  of 
the  word  is  an  unspiritual  idea  of  holiness,  and  there- 
fore an  unspiritual  idea  of  the  method  of  attaining 
holiness.  In  both  it  is  assumed  to  be  best  attained 
by  withdrawal,  either  complete  or  partial,  from  the 
world.  The  method,  of  course,  finds  its  completest 
form  in  the  medisevalism  of  the  Roman  Church ;  but 
many  of  the  modern  pietist  conceptions  of  a  saint  are 
coloured  by  the  same  idea,  and  only  differ  from  the 
other  by  not  being  carried  out  to  their  logical 
conclusion. 

The  origin  of  the  defined  and  limited  class  of  saints 
in  the  early  Church  was  very  natural.    It  was  natural 


MEDliEVAL  SAINTHOOD  239 

for  the  Church  to  look  back  to  the  Apostles  of  Jesus, 
who  had  known  Him  in  the  flesh,  as  belonging  to  a 
special  and  privileged  class,  with  special  claims  to  be 
called  saints.  Then,  in  the  hard  times  of  persecution 
when  the  Church  had  to  go  through  the  fire,  it  was 
natural  that  all  who  suffered  death  for  Christ's  sake 
should  be  admired  and  venerated.  They  had  sealed 
their  faith  with  their  blood.  As  a  matter  of  course, 
all  who  suffered  as  martyrs  were  put  on  the  list  of 
saints.  The  first  hagiology  was  a  martyrology ;  this 
was  so  especially  the  case  that  the  word  martyrology 
is  still  used  in  ecclesiastic  language  for  the  list  of 
the  saints,  though  in  later  times  many  were  canonised 
who  had  not  died  as  martyrs.  The  same  was  true 
of  the  Confessors,  who,  though  they  were  not  actu- 
ally put  to  death,  suffered  torture  and  imprisonment, 
and  refused  to  deny  their  faith.  Ordinary  flesh  and 
blood  admired  such  heroic  adherence  to  Christ,  and 
men  assumed  that  these  noble  sufferers  must  be  of  a 
stronger  fibre,  with  a  greatness  of  faith  which  lifted 
them  out  of  the  common  ranks.  The  very  humility 
of  the  Church  made  ordinary  believers  set  up  as  better 
than  themselves  others,  who  were  thus  eminent  in 
their  piety,  more  remarkable  in  the  steadfastness  of 
their  testimony,  and  more  useful  in  their  servicec. 

In  the  primitive  Church  it  was  customary  to  make 
much  of  the  memory  of  their  martyrs,  the  holy  dead 
who  would  not  deny  their  Lord.  They  kept  the  anni- 
versaries of  their  death,  and  took  communion  on  these 
days.  Each  Church  had  its  own  martyrs  and  con- 
fessors, the  men  who  had  worshipped  with  them  and 
had  departed  in  the  odour  of  sanctity,  and  these  were 
lovingly  remembered.    It  was  merely  a  grateful  com- 


240  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

memoration,  and  was  of  practical  use  as  an  incitement 
to  emulate  the  example  of  pious  and  holy  men. 
Eusebius  quotes  in  his  History  of  the  Church  an  in- 
teresting letter  from  the  Church  of  Smyrna,  which 
shows  the  natural  veneration  for  a  martyr,  and  also  re- 
veals that  they  were  well  aware  of  the  danger  of 
Saint-worship,  by  the  way  they  guard  themselves  in 
explaining  in  what  sense  they  display  respect  and 
veneration  to  the  relics.  The  letter  gives  an  account  of 
the  martyrdom  of  their  bishop,  St.  Polycarp,  and  then 
goes  on  *'  Our  subtle  enemy,  the  devil,  did  his  utmost 
that  we  should  not  take  away  the  body,  as  many  of 
us  wished  to  do.  It  was  suggested  that  we  should 
desert  our  crucified  Master  and  begin  to  worship 
Polycarp.  Fools !  who  knew  not  that  we  can  never 
desert  Christ,  who  died  for  the  salvation  of  all  men, 
nor  worship  any  other.  Him  we  adore  as  the  Son 
of  God;  but  we  show  respect  to  the  martyrs,  as  His 
disciples  and  followers.  The  centurion,  therefore, 
caused  the  body  to  be  burned;  we  then  gathered  his 
bones,  more  precious  than  pearls,  and  more  tried  than 
gold,  and  buried  them.  In  this  place,  God  willing,  we 
will  meet  and  celebrate  with  joy  and  gladness  the 
birthday  of  this  martyr,  as  well  in  memory  of  those 
who  have  been  crowned  before,  as  by  his  example  to 
prepare  and  strengthen  others  for  the  combat."  ^  We 
see  from  this  most  interesting  letter  how  natural  it 
was  that  a  Church  should  hold  festival  on  a  martyr's 
birthday,  which  was  counted  the  day  of  his  martyrdom, 
as  being  the  day  he  entered  into  fulness  of  life;  and 
how  natural  it  was  also  that  the  relics  should  be  lov- 
ingly preserved  and  treasured,  even  put  in  their  most 

*  Baring-Gould,  Lives  of  the  Saints,  vol.  i.,  Intro,  p.  xii. 


MEDIiEVAL  SAINTHOOD  241 

sacred  place,  under  the  altar,  as  became  the  common 
practice  in  the  Church.  It  is  to  be  expected  that  their 
fellow-believers  should  hold  in  deep  affection  the 
mortal  remains  of  a  heroic  brother.  In  course  of  time 
what  was  a  natural  and  beautiful  instinct  became  de- 
graded. From  this  human  root  grew  all  the  abuses 
which  are  associated  with  saint-worship — ^the  super- 
stition, the  miracle-mongering,  the  fetish  of  saints' 
bones  and  relics,  which  has  made  the  very  word  saint 
an  offence  in  the  ears  of  many.  The  good  custom  cor- 
rupted the  Church. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  trace  the  steps  of  the  descent, 
down  to  the  belief  in  the  magical  efficacy  of  touching 
some  sacred  relic.  The  eminent  Christians,  who  were 
sainted,  were  at  first  held  up  for  the  exhortation  of  all 
the  people,  that  their  good  example  might  fire  them 
with  emulation  of  their  zeal  and  faithfulness;  and 
the  step  from  that  to  the  worship  of  the  Saints  was 
not  difficult  to  take  in  these  days,  when  the  hardest 
thing  for  the  Church  to  combat  was  the  pagan  tastes 
and  superstitions  of  a  great  mass  of  the  population. 
We  see  the  good  of  it,  and  the  danger,  in  a  remark 
of  St.  Augustine :  "  The  Christian  people  celebrate  the 
memory  of  the  martyrs  with  religious  solemnity  both 
to  excite  to  imitation,  and  that  they  may  become  fel- 
lows in  their  merits  and  be  assisted  by  their  prayers." 
The  catalogue  of  those  who  had  claims  to  sainthood 
grew  larger  as  the  years  passed,  and  it  was  impossible 
even  to  read  all  the  names  on  the  days  set  apart,  when 
the  Church  thanked  God  for  the  Martyrs  and  Saints, 
who  had  witnessed  a  good  confession.  So,  gradually 
the  whole  year  was  mapped  out,  and  the  saints  were 
named  on  their  special  days.     To  begin  with,  each 


242  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

Church  of  a  district  made  its  own  saints,  and  com- 
memorated its  own  blessed  dead,  those  whom  they 
knew  to  be  eminent  for  sanctity.  Each  bishop  had  the 
power  to  canonise  a  local  saint  or  martyr,  but  in  the 
twelfth  century  these  local  lists  were  closed,  and  the 
Pope  claimed  the  sole  right  of  creating  saints  in  this 
ecclesiastical  sense.  According  to  the  laws  of  canoni- 
sation, which  hold  good  in  the  Roman  Church  to-day, 
there  must  be,  in  addition  to  heroic  virtue,  evidence  of 
the  saint  having  performed  miracles  in  confirmation 
of  his  sanctity. 

But  worse  even,  if  possible,  than  all  the  abuses 
which  crept  into  the  Church  through  saint-worship 
is  the  degradation  of  the  word  Saint  itself.  It  began 
by  the  removal  of  the  idea  of  sainthood  from  the 
ordinary  lives  of  ordinary  Christians.  It  was  taken 
away  as  an  ideal  for  all,  and  ultimately  was  made  the 
mark  of  a  special  and  artificial  type  of  goodness.  What 
we  have  already  seen  of  the  origin  of  the  ecclesiastical 
saint  explains  how  this  came  about.  We  saw  how 
naturally  the  Martyrology  set  the  standard.  The 
Martyrs  were  canonised,  because  of  their  suffering 
unto  death  for  the  name  of  the  Lord.  Suffering  came 
to  be  the  badge  of  the  saint;  and  so  when  the  days  of 
martyrdom  passed,  other  kinds  of  suffering  took  the 
place  of  martyrdom  as  tests  of  sainthood.  When  the 
Christian  faith  was  recognised  by  the  Empire,  so  that 
persecution  ceased  and  the  opportunities  of  martyrdom 
were  reduced,  the  idea  became  prevalent  that  there  was 
no  longer  scope  in  the  world  for  the  full  exercise  of 
Christian  virtue  in  a  heroic  degree.  The  confessors 
who  had  suffered  were  held  in  higher  esteem  than 


MEDIAEVAL  SAINTHOOD  243 

ever;  and  the  standard  then  set  up  was  transferred  to 
the  self-inflicted  austerities  of  those  who  sought  to 
display  exceptional  virtue  Men  martyred  themselves, 
and  the  ideal  Christian  Hfe  came  to  be  a  life  of  as- 
ceticism, however  empty  of  moral  significance  these 
ascetic  practices  happened  to  be.  Fasting,  maceration, 
physical  self-mortification,  voluntary  privation,  be- 
came the  marks  of  a  saint.  The  anchorites  were  con- 
sidered by  the  people  more  holy  than  the  coenobite 
monks  who  resided  in  monasteries,  because  they  car- 
ried the  principle  of  renunciation  furthest.  If  renunci- 
ation is  in  itself  good,  and  even  represents  the  highest 
life,  then  of  course  the  solitary  ascetics,  who  renounced 
not  only  the  world  but  the  society  of  their  fellows, 
have  reached  a  higher  point  of  perfection. 

We  find  all  kinds  of  artificial  self-torture  among 
these,  as  if  they  competed  with  each  other  in  dis- 
covering new  kinds  of  cruelty  against  their  own  per- 
sons. Many  of  the  Saints,  whose  names  have  been 
included  in  the  great  catalogue,  have  little  about  the 
record  of  their  lives  that  is  really  noble  and  beauti- 
ful and  Christlike.  Some  of  the  Lives  of  the  Saints 
are  but  pitiful,  and  even  disgusting,  reading.  It  is 
true  that  in  a  profligate  time,  when  the  world  seemed 
drowned  in  luxury,  the  spectacle  of  men,  willingly 
inflicting  the  most  terrible  severity  on  themselves, 
may  have  done  good  by  creating  a  startling  sense  of 
contrast.  Any  good,  however,  that  might  have  ac- 
crued from  such  was  a  thousandfold  counterbalanced 
by  the  immense  evil  produced  in  the  Church  by  the 
thought  that  the  supposed  holiness,  which  gives  a 
man  a  title  to  be  a  saint,  has  little  to  do  with  ordinary 
life.    Nothing  could  make  up  for  the  loss  which  came 


244  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

through  the  true  ideal  of  the  Christian  Ufe  being  ob- 
scured. Among  the  hermits  of  Egypt  there  was  dis- 
played a  remarkable  ingenuity  in  the  different  forms  of 
austerity,  and  in  the  kinds  of  penance  they  imposed  on 
themselves  sometimes  for  very  trivial  faults,  all  being 
the  fruit  of  the  notion  that  suffering  in  itself  was  good. 
St.  Macarius  of  Alexandria,  so  called  to  distinguish 
him  from  another  St.  Macarius  of  Egypt,  was  one  day 
'^tung  by  a  gnat  in  his  cell,  and  he  killed  it.  Then, 
regretting  that  he  had  allowed  himself  to  be  irritated 
by  an  insect,  and  that  he  had  lost  an  opportunity  of 
enduring  mortification  calmly,  he  went  to  the  marshes 
of  Scete  and  stayed  there  six  months  suffering  terribly 
from  the  insects,  as  if  they  had  known  he  had  killed 
a  brother  gnat.  When  he  returned  he  was  so  dis- 
figured by  their  bites  that  he  was  only  recognised  by 
his  voice.  When  a  younger  disciple  once  asked  leave 
to  drink  a  little  water  because  of  the  parching  thirst, 
the  old  hermit,  under  whose  care  and  tuition  he  had 
put  himself,  told  him  to  be  satisfied  with  resting 
for  a  little  in  the  shade,  and  to  encourage  him  said 
that  for  twenty  years  he  had  never  once  eaten,  or 
drunk,  or  slept,  as  much  as  nature  demanded.  St. 
Anthony  at  one  period  went  to  the  tombs,  and  leaving 
instructions  with  an  acquaintance  to  bring  bread  at 
intervals  of  many  days,  he  entered  one  of  the  tombs, 
and  shutting  the  door  upon  himself  remained  there 
alone. 

Some  of  the  austerities  were  grotesque  in  the  ex- 
treme, though,  if  we  grant  the  assumption  that  a  saint 
is  to  be  made  through  self-inflicted  suffering,  we  can- 
not wonder  at  eccentric  forms  of  pain  being  sought 
after.    Among  the  Celtic  Saints  barbarities  were  com- 


MEDIAEVAL  SAINTHOOD  245 

mon :  one  would  stand  naked  in  ice-cold  water  until  he 
recited  the  psalter ;  another  would  sleep  among  corpses 
and  suspend  himself  on  the  points  of  sickles  placed 
under  his  armpits;  another  would  keep  a  stone  in  his 
mouth  throughout  Lent.  Endless  instances  could 
be  given  of  how  the  whole  conception  of  sainthood 
became  degraded.  One  of  the  first  disciples  of  An- 
thony was  Paul  the  Simple,  who  came  at  the  age  of 
sixty  as  a  candidate  to  adopt  the  mc«iastic  life.  An- 
thony, to  test  his  qualifications,  and  thinking  him 
too  old  to  begin,  tried  to  disgust  him  by  the  severity 
of  the  discipline.  He  set  Paul  to  pray  outside  his 
door,  and  told  him  not  to  desist  till  he  was  released. 
He  prayed  on  through  the  blazing  sun,  and  through  the 
night,  as  rigid  as  one  of  the  date-palms  of  the  desert. 
He  then  brought  him  into  his  cave,  and  gave  him 
some  platting  work  to  do,  and  when  it  was  done  re- 
buked him  for  doing  it  badly,  and  bade  him  undo  it 
all  again.  Anthony  then  brought  bread  and  called 
the  famished  candidate  to  supper,  but  as  grace  before 
meat,  he  recited  twelve  Psalms  and  twelve  prayers 
to  try  his  patience,  and  then  took  away  the  bread,  say- 
ing that  looking  on  it  would  suffice  for  supper.  As 
Paul  did  not  murmur  at  even  this  new  version  of  a 
Barmecide  feast,  we  are  told  that  Anthony  saw  that 
he  was  qualified  to  be  a  monk.^ 

This  conception  of  the  saintly  life  as  implying 
self-mortification  is  not  confined  to  the  first  early 
hermits;  it  has  persisted  throughout  the  centuries, 
though  in  the  finest  and  noblest  of  the  canonical  saints 
it  has  been  modified  by  never  being  chosen  as  a  good 
in  itself.     But  right  through  the  Roman  Calendar  it 

^  Lives  of  the  Saints,  vol.  iii.  p.  114. 


146  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

is  always  considered  a  great  feature  of  sainthood, 
that  men  and  women  should  have  shown  their  con- 
tempt for  the  world  by  the  practice  of  austerities.  In 
every  country  and  every  age  there  are  saints  who 
have  been  canonised  seemingly  for  no  other  reason 
than  that  they  have  emulated  the  pains  of  the  early 
confessors.  The  Blessed  Marianna  of  Quito  in  Peru, 
who  lived  in  the  seventeenth  century  but  was  only 
beatified  in  1850  by  Pius  IX.,  seems  to  have  bought 
her  title  to  sainthood  by  mortification.  She  used  to 
sleep  in  a  coffin  or  on  a  cross,  and  on  Fridays  she 
hung  for  two  hours  on  a  cross,  suspended  to  it  by  her 
hair  and  by  ropes.  Another  saint  of  the  same  period 
in  Peru,  St.  Rose  of  Lima,  set  herself  to  imitate  St. 
Catherine  of  Siena,  fasted  like  her,  wrapped  chains 
round  her  body,  had  a  crown  of  thorns  which  she 
placed  daily  on  her  head,  and  had  it  struck  so  as  to 
wound  her  forehead. 

This  whole  conception  which  colours  the  story  of 
so  many  saints  is  due  to  a  false  and  mischievous 
view  of  the  meaning  and  value  of  pain.  It  is  an 
inevitable  temptation  of  asceticism,  that  it  can  hardly 
fail  to  put  value  on  suffering  for  its  own  sake.  Some- 
times there  is  lurking  at  the  bottom  of  it  the  thought 
of  its  being  an  expiation,  and  sometimes  that  it  is  a 
purifying  process ;  but  these  are  much  higher  and  less 
dangerous  than  the  useless  self-sacrifice,  which  looks 
upon  pain  as  in  itself  a  good.  It  sets  a  false  standard, 
which  vitiates  true  morality,  though  we  recognise  the 
element  of  truth  in  it.  There  is  a  heart  of  good  in 
things  evil;  and  it  is  not  difficult  to  see  how  penance 
grew  to  such  lengths  in  the  Church.  Christians  early 
learned  the  deep  spiritual  value  of  trial,  and   from 


MEDIEVAL  SAINTHOOD  247 

experience  they  could  testify  that  good  did  come  out  of 
seeming  evil.  All  the  sad  experiences  of  life,  which 
come  as  fresh  food  for  suffering,  become  also  occa- 
sions for  triumph,  ever  more  fruitful  of  renewed 
strength,  and  hope,  and  peace.  They  learned  to  glory 
in  tribulations,  knowing,  as  they  daily  discovered, 
that  tribulation  worketh  patience,  and  patience  experi- 
ence, and  experience  hope,  and  hope  maketh  not 
ashamed,  because  the  love  of  God  was  shed  abroad  in 
their  hearts.  From  this  root  of  truth  came  the  false 
doctrine  of  penance,  that  men  should  make  trials  for 
themselves,  which  is  always  a  dangerous  experiment, 
and  can  hardly  escape  the  temptation  to  value  the 
form  of  discipline  for  its  own  sake. 

The  doctrine  of  the  cross  is  sometimes  stated  as  if 
there  were  in  itself  a  purifying  quality  in  pain,  and 
even  as  if  God  took  pleasure  in  our  agony,  and  asked 
for  mutilation  of  body  or  mind  as  the  necessary  way 
of  pleasing  Him.  It  is  not  merely  that  this  leads  to 
mere  sentimental  ism  in  many,  who  speak  of  renunci- 
ation when  there  is  no  real  sacrifice  underlying  it. 
We  just  need  to  think  of  the  amount  of  spurious 
mysticism,  the  unreal  sentiment  in  much  devotional 
phraseology  about  self-crucifixion,  to  realise  the  temp- 
tation on  this  side.  But  worse  than  that  even  is  the 
thought  of  God  as  a  sort  of  Moloch,  who  takes  de- 
light in  seeing  our  children  pass  through  the  fire. 
It  is  a  pagan  thought,  that  mere  suffering  is  pleas- 
ing to  God,  and  is  blessed  to  the  soul.  The  prophet 
denounces  the  idea  that  God  requires  of  men  burnt- 
offerings,  or  such  a  sacrifice  as  their  first-bom  for 
their  transgression ;  and  points  them  to  a  free  and 
joyous   life  of  justice,  and  kindness,   and  a  humble 


248  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

walk  with  God.  There  are  tragic  and  terrible  aspects 
of  Hfe,  that  seem  sometimes  almost  to  justify  the  ex- 
tremest  attitude  of  asceticism ;  but  life  as  God  gave  it 
is  a  good  thing  with  its  own  joy  and  beauty.  Chris- 
tianity has  often  been  called  a  religion  of  sacrifice  and 
sorrow,  of  blood  and  tears ;  and  it  is  profoundly  true ; 
but  it  is  not  true  in  the  sense  sometimes  meant. 
Christ  never  looked  upon  pain  as  a  good  thing,  as  is 
so  often  done  by  sentimental  devotionaHsm.  To  Him 
it  was  an  evil  thing  to  be  banished,  one  of  the  bane- 
ful brood  of  sin,  with  which  He  waged  warfare.  He 
never  took  upon  Himself  any  needless  pain ;  He  manu- 
factured no  forms  of  self-denial,  and  chose  no  artificial 
deprivations.  He  was  no  martyr  by  mistake.  Men 
have  sometimes  expatiated  on  the  physical  pains  of  the 
crucifixion,  and  have  attempted  to  estimate  the  spiritual 
pains  that  broke  the  Saviour's  heart;  and  have  in  it 
all  lost  sight  of  the  real  point  of  emphasis,  that  the 
self-emptying,  the  sacrifice,  the  cross,  are  all  to  be 
interpreted  by  love.  And  many  who  have  sincerely 
desired  to  follow  Jesus,  have  done  so  by  various 
forms  of  self-inflicted  penance,  seeking  to  imitate 
Him  in  an  external  way ;  whereas  it  might  be  possible 
to  have  the  imitation  carried  to  such  complete  detail  as 
to  include  the  very  cross  itself,  and  yet  there  be  no 
meaning,  no  sacrifice  in  it,  and  the  whole  result  a 
ghastly  failure. 

There  is  no  merit  in  pain  in  itself,  and  no  moral 
value  in  suffering,  and  no  virtue  in  the  cross  in  itself. 
Pain  is  often,  it  is  true,  a  "  hound  of  heaven  "  to  a 
good  man,  driving  him  to  spiritual  ends;  but  an  evil 
man  has  his  share  of  pain,  and  remains  evil.  Spiritu- 
ally, it  all  depends  on  the  way  it  is  accepted  and  used. 


MEDIEVAL  SAINTHOOD  249 

*'  It  is  good  for  me  that  I  have  been  afflicted,"  said  the 
Psalmist,  "  that  I  might  learn  Thy  statutes.  Before  I 
was  afflicted  I  went  astray ;  but  now  I  have  kept  Thy 
word ;  "  ^  but  often  affliction  only  degrades  and  hardens. 
Pain  is  nothing  in  itself.  Mere  tribulation,  unsancti- 
fied  to  the  soul  that  suffers,  is  not  a  blessing  but  a 
curse.  The  furnace  without  this  result  only  con- 
sumes the  heart,  bums  away  the  life  into  charred  dust. 
A  man  may  go  through  the  fire  unpurified,  and  taste 
the  chastisement  of  life  without  the  love  in  it,  and  be 
made  only  more  hard  and  rebellious  by  every  stroke 
on  the  anvil.  There  is  no  failure  of  life  so  terrible 
as  this,  to  have  the  pain  without  the  lesson,  the  sorrow 
without  the  softening;  and  yet  it  is  common  enough. 
And  if  this  is  true  of  the  inevitable  affliction  which 
comes  to  all  without  seeking  it,  it  is  also  true  that 
the  pain  of  any  voluntary  self-denial  in  itself  has  no 
magical  merit..  It  may  indeed  have  a  moral  value,  in 
being  a  test  of  the  constancy  of  soul  which  occasioned 
the  denial.  It  may  be  a  proof  of  the  higher  love,  and 
may  at  least  show  that  it  is  more  than  an  emotion. 
Still,  it  must  be  insisted  that  mere  idle  self-denial  is  of 
no  value. 

It  is  very  important  that  we  should  have  a  con- 
sistent attitude  towards  pain,  and  perhaps  here  as 
elsewhere  the  rule  in  medio  tutissimus  is  a  good  one. 
There  may  be  a  weak  dread  of  pain,  which  leads  to 
all  forms  of  moral  cowardice,  and  which  would  make 
physical  comfort  the  chief  end  of  life;  but,  on  the 
other  hand,  to  look  upon  pain  as  anything  but  an 
evil  is  to  set  a  false  standard  for  self,  and  to  give  an 
opening  for  cruelty  towards  others.    It  was  a  similar 

*  Psalm  cxix.,  verses  67  and  71. 


250  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

m(X)d  to  this  last,  which  inspired  the  opposition  to  the 
use  of  chloroform,  which  Sir  James  Simpson  had  to 
encounter;  some  objectors  holding  that  pain  was  of 
God's  appointing,  and  that  it  was  a  species  of  presump- 
tion to  seek  to  mitigate  it.  In  the  literature  of  the 
canonical  saints  this  endurance  of  bodily  pain  is  en- 
larged on,  till  the  chief  mark  of  sainthood  came  to  be 
suffering,  and  human  life  was  put  out  of  perspective. 
In  the  ordinary  conduct  of  life  there  are  plenty  oppor- 
tunities for  endurance,  and  patience,  and  true  self- 
denial;  and  these  fine  qualities  are  always  found  in 
every  noble  life.  Courage  in  the  face  of  danger,  resig- 
nation before  calamity,  endurance  in  the  path  of  duty 
in  spite  of  any  suffering  that  may  be  involved — these 
will  always  command  the  admiration  of  men ;  but 
empty  suffering,  with  no  necessity  to  explain  it,  or  no 
high  end  to  dignify  it,  is  without  moral  contents. 
The  mere  giving  up,  with  no  purpose  and  no  large 
reason,  is  useless.  That  is  to  look  upon  self-denial 
as  a  fetish,  as  if  God  could  be  pleased  by  pain  ;  and  this 
is  at  the  bottom  of  so  much  mistake  in  the  history  of 
the  Church,  and  of  so  much  false  devotion  to-day.  It 
is  a  wrong  conception  of  God,  to  think  His  favour 
depends  on  the  infliction  of  some  sort  of  painful 
deprivation  on  self;  as  if  even  He  could  be  bribed  by 
self-torture. 

It  must  never  be  forgotten  that  all  our  Lord's  pains 
came  to  Him  in  His  ministry,  in  His  service,  in  the 
path  of  duty ;  and  they  were  all  inspired,  and  glorified, 
by  love.  This  is  why  Christianity  is  a  religion  of 
joy,  as  well  as  of  sorrow;  because  it  is  a  religion  of 
love.  From  one  point  of  view  the  life  of  Jesus  was 
an  easy,  simple,  natural,  joyous,  instinctive  life;  and 


MEDIEVAL  SAINTHOOD  251 

yet  from  another  it  was  a  stern,  strenuous,  and  even  a 
stricken  life.  He,  who  was  pre-eminently  the  Man 
of  joy,  who  at  the  last  spoke  of  giving  His  joy  to  the 
disciples,  was  also  the  Man  of  sorrows ;  and  the  source 
of  His  joy  and  of  His  sorrow  was  the  same.  They  are 
both  the  fruit  of  love.  The  joy  of  love  is  a  fact, 
and  so  also  is  the  sorrow  of  love.  It  is  profoundly  true 
that 

The  mark  of  rank  in  nature 
Is  capacity  for  pain. 

That  is  because  it  is  capacity  for  love.  Vicarious  suf- 
fering is  a  fact  of  life,  and  cannot  be  expelled  from 
life,  till  love  is  expelled.  We  cannot  care  greatly 
for  the  highest  interests  of  another,  without  bearing 
his  infirmities,  and  taking  on  his  sicknesses,  nay,  even 
bowing  to  the  burden  of  his  sins.  To  see  how  true 
and  how  universal  this  vicarious  suffering  is,  we 
need  only  look  around — the  shepherd  and  his  lost 
sheep,  the  tender  picture  Jesus  drew  of  how  the 
shepherd  thinks  not  of  those  safe  in  the  fold  but  of 
the  one  strayed  silly  sheep,  and  goes  out  into  the  wil- 
derness to  find  it:  a  mother  and  her  cripple  child,  the 
gentlest-tended,  the  best  beloved  of  all  the  family,  as 
she  takes  the  very  infirmities  on  her  heart:  a  father 
and  his  prodigal  son,  with  a  keener  sorrow  and  an- 
guish of  soul  than  even  he  can  suffer  in  the  far  country 
though  he  perish  with  hunger.  The  hunger,  which  can 
be  appeased  with  the  husks  the  swine  did  eat,  is  noth- 
ing to  the  heart -hunger  at  home.  Love's  sorrows  are 
as  true  as  its  joys;  and  yet  the  love  transmutes  the 
sorrow  into  something  passing  rich  and  strange,  as 
with  the  Master  Himself,  of  whom  we  read  that  He 


2S2  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

for  the  joy  set  before  Him  endured  the  cross  and  de- 
spised the  shame.  Sacrifice  is  of  the  very  essence  of 
love,  but  without  love  there  is  no  sacrifice.  All  pains 
and  self-denials  are  barren  and  dangerous  self-de- 
ceptions, if  they  are  not  prompted,  and  inspired,  and 
imposed  by  love.  Only  love's  own  royal  hand  can 
make  the  thorns  into  a  crown.  It  is  false  therefore  to 
say  that  a  life  is  to  be  measured  by  loss  or  by  pain : 
it  can  only  be  measured  by  love.  That  at  least  is 
how  it  will  be  measured  and  judged  one  day. 

A  further  and  even  more  serious  evil,  affecting  not 
the  individual  merely,  but  the  whole  conception  of 
the  Christian  life,  was  created  by  the  degradation  of 
the  word  saint,  as  solely  the  privilege  of  the  ascetic. 
The  strange  division  of  the  Christian  life  into  two 
grades  began,  which  exists  to  this  day  in  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church,  that  there  are  two  classes  of  believers 
with  two  standards  of  morality.  The  foundation  of  the 
error  is  the  belief  that  at  bottom  the  Christian  faith  is 
a  world-renouncing  creed,  and  that  those,  who  would 
perfectly  fulfil  the  word  of  Christ,  must  give  up  the 
Vv^orld  in  the  ascetic  sense.  This  practically  narrowed 
itself  down  ultimately  to  a  question  of  the  celibate  or 
the  married  life.  The  theory  is  that  there  is  a  loftier 
stage  of  Christian  life,  possible  only  to  those  who  live 
unmarried  and  as  far  as  possible  apart  from  the  world. 
The  monastic  life  was  called  the  angelic  life.^  The 
words  "  religion  "  and  "  religious  "  are  always  used 
by  mediaeval  writers  in  the  sense  of  one  who  has  em- 
braced the  monastic  life,  as  can  be  seen  from  such 


MEDIAEVAL  SAINTHOOD  253 

beautiful  books  as  the  Fioretti  of  St.  Francis,  or  the 
Imitaiio  Christi,  where  asceticism  is  touched  with  a 
sweet  and  gentle  tenderness,  that  makes  them  perenni- 
ally attractive.  The  **  religious  "  are  always  those  who 
have  left  the  business  of  the  world  to  seek  holiness 
in  seclusion.  This  is  still  the  ecclesiastical  use  of  the 
word,  as  for  example  in  the  common  phrase  "  to  enter 
religion,"  meaning  to  take  the  vow  of  some  monastic 
order,  or  the  equally  common  phrase  '*  his  name  in 

religion    is    ."      A    "  religious "    in    the    Roman 

Catholic  sense  always  means  a  monk,  or  friar,  or  nun. 
The  influence  of  Greek  thought,  as  seen  in  the 
Alexandrian  theology,  helped  to  create  the  distinc- 
tion we  are  noticing.  That  theology,  which  laid  so 
much  stress  on  knowledge,^  tended  in  itself  to  make 
two  ranks  of  Christians,  with  two  different  standards 
of  virtue — the  Christian  sage  and  the  simple  believer. 
The  one  could  enter  into  the  mysteries  of  the  faith, 
could  read  the  symbolism  in  nature,  and  the  allegory 
in  history  and  in  religious  interpretation,  of  which 
that  school  was  so  fond;  the  other  had  to  accept 
results,  and  receive  the  teaching,  and  live  by  simple 
faith.  These  two  tendencies,  one  ascetic  and  the 
other  intellectual,  were  combined  in  this  way,  that 
the  Christian  sage  was  recognised  as  the  man  who 
gave  himself  up  to  the  life  of  contemplation,  and  cut 
himself  off  from  the  entanglements  of  the  earthly 
relations.  The  superior  virtue  of  the  sage  was  evi- 
denced by  his  contempt  of  the  ordinary  comforts  of 
life.  But  as  this  superiority  was  impossible  for  all 
believers,  since,  if  followed  by  all,  it  would  bring  the 
» yv&6ii,  if  Beta  6o<pia. 


254  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

Church  to  an  end,  a  place  was  left  in  the  Church  for 
those  inferior  persons,  who  were  content  with  the 
lower  kind  of  life. 

This  ascetic  division  of  the  moral  law,  however, 
was  not  allowed  to  grow  without  powerful  protest. 
Clement  of  Alexandria  opposed  the  tendency  to  ele- 
vate the  ascetic  and  celibate  life  above  that  of  the 
ordinary  Christian  living  in  the  common  way  in  the 
world.  He  pointed  to  the  inward  and  the  spiritual; 
and  declared  that  humility  is  shown,  not  by  castiga- 
tion  of  body,  but  by  gentleness  of  disposition.  True 
abstinence  was  of  the  soul,  and  referred  not  merely, 
as  asceticism  implied,  to  bodily  pleasures.  The  busi- 
ness of  the  world  should  be  conducted  in  an  unworldly 
way;  and  this  was  the  task  of  Christians.  Still,  in 
spite  of  such  protests,  the  opposition  between  the 
ascetic  and  the  common  Christian  grew,  and  the 
cleavage  widened. 

The  Roman  Catholic  theory  of  Christian  morals  is 
still  that  of  these  days,  that  there  is  a  higher  and  a 
lower  morality;  the  ascetic  type  being  the  true  per- 
fection of  Christian  life,  the  other  a  kind  of  com- 
promise, necessary  for  less  strenuous  people.  There 
are  the  perfect  Christians,  and  the  common  Chris- 
tians, two  grades,  with  necessarily  two  standards  of 
morality,  that  of  the  religious  orders,  and  that  of 
secular  Christians.  This  is  inevitable  in  a  Church 
which  claims  universal  sway,  and  yet  binds  itself  to  an 
ascetic  creed  as  at  least  the  highest  manner  of  life. 
Renan  accepts  this  as  the  logical  conclusion  of 
Christ's  teaching;  for  of  course  it  suits  his  purpose  to 
assume  that  what  he  found  in  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  was  the  New  Testament  position.     He  says: 


MEDIAEVAL  SAINTHOOD  255 

"  Perfection  being  placed  beyond  the  ordinary  condi- 
tions of  society,  and  a  complete  gospel  life  being 
only  possible  away  from  the  world,  the  principle  of 
asceticism  and  monasticism  was  established.  Christian 
societies  would  have  two  moral  rules:  the  one  mod- 
erately heroic  for  common  men,  the  other  exalted 
in  the  extreme  for  the  perfect  man,  and  the  perfect 
man  would  be  the  monk,  subjected  to  rules  which 
professed  to  realise  the  Gospel  ideal.  It  is  certain 
that  this  ideal,  if  only  on  account  of  the  celibacy  and 
poverty  it  imposed,  could  not  become  the  common 
law."  ^  He  pushes  this  argument  as  conclusive 
against  the  faith,  if  judged  by  common  sense.  The 
argument  is  indeed  conclusive,  if  he  could  prove  the 
premise,  that  such  a  division  of  the  ethical  standard 
is  sanctioned  by  the  New  Testament.  Renan  cer- 
tainly states  a  fact  of  Qiurch  history,  that  such  a 
division  was  actually  made.  The  result  was  that  celi- 
bacy and  renunciation  were  pointed  to  as  essential 
requisites  for  the  highest  Christian  attainment.  They 
were  not  made  necessary  for  salvation,  that  is  for 
bare  salvation,  but  necessary  for  a  high  place  in  the 
Kingdom.  This  division  inevitably  did  mean,  as 
Renan  asserts,  a  double  morality  with  two  moral 
rules,  one  for  common  mortals,  the  other  for  perfect 
men  who  professed,  and  alone  could  profess,  to  realise 
the  Gospel. 

This  is  absurd  as  logic.  If  voluntary  celibacy  and 
renunciation  of  the  world  are  necessary  for  Christian 
perfection,  then  it  must  be  a  rule  for  all.  There  can 
be  no  exceptions.  It  cannot  be  left  optional  that  a 
Christian  should  choose  a  lower  line  of  life  than  Jesus 

^  Renan,  Vie  de  Jesus,  chap.  xix. 


256  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

asked  for;  and  if  abstinence  is  the  higher  virtue,  it  is 
incumbent  on  all.  Morality  comes  always  with  a  cate- 
gorical imperative.  It  ever  comes  as  "  Thou  must, 
thou  shalt,"  never  as  "  Thou  mayest."  It  is  not  a  coun- 
sel, but  a  command :  it  states  a  law.  The  only  logical 
position  is  the  position  of  the  New  Testament,  which 
never  once  hints  at  such  compromises,  but  speaks  of  all 
the  Church  as  called  to  be  saints;  and  if  that  implies 
an  ascetic  life,  as  the  Church  of  Rome  asserts,  then 
it  is  bound  to  insist  on  the  same  moral  standard  being 
imposed  on  all.  The  fact  that  this  is  impossible,  if  the 
world  is  to  continue  at  all,  is  no  reason  for  moral  com- 
promises, but  might  be  a  fit  reason  for  considering  the 
fundamental  position,  and  for  examining  its  truth. 

If  this  division  is  absurd  as  logic,  it  was  also  un- 
speakably evil  as  practice.  It  is  not  necessary  to  stop 
to  speak  of  all  the  evils  which  resulted — indeed  to  do 
so  would  be  to  traverse  the  whole  Christian  centuries. 
We  have  already  seen  that,  since  saints  were  supposed 
to  be  a  different  order  of  being  from  ordinary  believers, 
this  led  to  saint-worship,  and  its  kindred  superstitions. 
The  theory  of  ''  good  works  "  was  a  further  conclusion 
which  followed.  For,  whatever  might  be  the  case  with 
the  common  Christian  living  under  the  common  code 
of  morals,  those  who  fulfilled  all  righteousness  after 
the  perfect  pattern,  not  only  did  not  need  a  Redeemer 
in  the  same  sense  as  the  others,  but  had  even  a  stock  of 
merit  over  and  above  through  their  refined  sanctity. 
All  the  errors  and  abuses,  which  blossomed  from  the 
doctrine  of  good  works,  down  to  the  scandalous  sale 
of  indulgences,  which  roused  Luther  and  precipitated 
the  Reformation,  grew  from  this  root. 

The  practical  effect  also  on  the  Christian  life  was 


MEDIAEVAL  SAINTHOOD  257 

disastrous,  and  for  both  parties,  both  for  those  on 
the  higher  plane  and  those  on  the  lower.  Men,  who 
were  in  earnest  after  holiness,  were  put  on  a  false 
trail,  and  were  given  a  life  to  live,  where  a  balance 
and  completeness  of  Christian  character  were  made 
well-nigh  impossible.  The  distinction,  which  set  them 
up  on  a  pinnacle,  created  often,  as  we  find  in  Church 
history,  a  spiritual  pride  and  self-righteousness,  which 
destroyed  the  very  purpose  of  sanctification  the  system 
was  meant  to  assist.  This  temptation  to  spiritual  pride 
is  one  which  besets  all  religion  which  makes  bodily 
penance  a  rule  of  life,  and  we  see  it  illustrated  again 
and  again  in  the  history  of  hermits  and  monks. 
Luther  unbares  the  religious  source  of  the  temptation, 
going  to  the  root  of  the  disease :  "  All  the  priests, 
monks  and  hermits,  that  live  in  their  cloisters  (1  speak 
of  the  best  of  them)  repose  their  trust  and  confidence 
in  their  own  works,  righteousness,  vows  and  merits 
and  not  in  Christ."  ^  This  at  least  is  the  temptation 
and  when  it  is  given  way  to,  it  results  in  the  most  offen- 
sive form  of  pride.  The  greater  the  appearance  of 
renunciation,  the  greater  grows  the  temptation. 

The  story  of  the  early  desert-saints  is  full  of  illus- 
trations of  the  lengths  to  which  pride  sometimes  car- 
ried men  who  had  renounced  the  world.  It  led  some 
monks  to  think  that  they  were  superior  not  only  to 
ordinary  men,  which  was  natural  enough  with  their 
standards ;  but  pride  often  made  them  think  themselves 
superior  to  the  ordinary  means  of  grace,  and  caused 
them  to  refuse  to  take  part  in  communion  as  being 
unnecessary  for  them..  Some  of  them  imagined  them- 
selves honoured  with  special  revelations,  leading  to  the 

*  Luther,  Com.  on  Galatians,  v.  2.  ad.  loc. 


258  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

most  eccentric  vagaries.  Sometimes,  on  the  other 
hand,  we  find  in  the  records  the  self-same  pride  show- 
ing itself  in  grotesque  and  exaggerated  humility,  in 
unreal  self-disparagement,  in  self-denunciation  about 
trifles,  a  mood  which  is  not  absent  in  some  forms  of 
present-day  religion  also.  We  can  understand  the 
temptation  to  pride  in  a  man  like  Simeon  Stylites, 
whose  extraordinary  self-torture  not  only  set  him  apart 
from  others,  but  also  impressed  thousands  to  come 
and  get  his  blessing.  Tennyson  in  his  poem  ^  refers 
to  this  subtle  temptation — 

**  Am  I  to  blame  for  this, 
That  here  come  those  that  worship   me?     Ha!    ha! 
They  think  that  I  am  somewhat.     What  am  I? 
The  silly  people  take  me  for  a  saint, 
And  bring  me  offerings  of  fruit  and  flowers : 
And  I  in  truth  (Thou  wilt  bear  me  witness  here) 
Have  all  in  all  endured  as  much,  and  more 
Than  many  just  and  holy  men,  whose  names 
Are  register'd  and  calendar'd  for  saints." 

Legal  morality  always  ends  in  self -righteousness. 
Our  Lord  makes  the  Pharisee  of  the  Parable  say  in 
self-satisfied  assurance,  "  I  fast  twice  in  the  week,"  ^ 
making  a  merit  in  the  discipline.  Those  who,  like 
St.  Simeon  Stylites,  pushed  the  physical  treatment 
of  the  soul  to  its  utmost  extreme,  often  also  show 
temptations  created  by  their  way  of  life,  narrowness 
of  mind,  self-will,  presumption,  zeal  without  knowl- 
edge, all  due  to  lack  of  culture  and  disregard  of  all 
considerations  except  the  one  aim.  It  is  to  be  ex- 
pected, for  example,  that  we  should  find  among  the 
crowd  of  monks  who  followed  St.  Anthony's  example, 

^St  Simeon  Stylites.  'Luke  xviii.   12. 


MEDIAEVAL  SAINTHOOD  259 

fanatical  fury,  which  ambitious  men  like  Cyril,  Bishop 
of  Alexandria,  utilised  for  their  purposes,  as  Kingsley 
illustrates  with  historical  accuracy  in  Hypatia.  Many 
of  the  first  hermits  and  monks  were  noble  men  ab- 
sorbed with  a  passion  for  holiness,  but  when  it  became 
almost  a  fashion,  many,  without  the  inward  strength 
for  the  life  and  without  the  deep  spiritual  impulse, 
crowded  to  the  desert  monasteries,  with  the  result 
that  the  whole  life  became  degraded.  Pride,  mental 
disorders,  insanity,  self-mutilation  often  to  the  extent 
of  suicide,  result-ed ;  and  sometimes  violent  reaction  to 
unbridled  licentiousness. 

Apart  from  such  dreadful  excesses,  which  indeed 
were  only  possible  when  the  ascetic  theory  was  carried 
to  its  furthest  as  implying  solitude,  yet  the  same  temj>- 
tation  of  pride  is  seen  in  the  conclusiveness  and  al- 
most contempt  for  Christians  of  the  lower  order,  inci- 
dent on  the  division  of  two  grades  of  which  we  are 
speaking.  We  can  see  from  a  casual  remark  of  New- 
man's how  the  theory  of  two  classes  arises,  and  even 
becomes  inevitable,  as  soon  as  the  ascetic  position  is 
accepted  even  in  a  modified  degree.  In  a  sermon  on 
Lent  he  discusses  the  temptation  of  reaction  into  self- 
indulgence,  that  follows  immediately  after  a  pro- 
longed fast,  and  he  adds :  '*  This  grievous  consequence 
is  said  actually  to  happen  in  some  foreign  countries, 
in  the  case  of  the  multitude,  who  never  will  have  a 
deep  and  consistent  devotion  while  the  world  lasts."  * 
It  is  strange  to  find  the  ascetic  ideal  leading  to  a 
similar  contemptuous  exclusiveness,  which  we  noted  as 
a  temptation  of  the  aesthetic  ideal,  which  makes  self- 
culture  the  end  of  life. 

*  Parochial  and  Plain  Sermons,  vol.  vi.  scr.  3. 


26o  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

Disastrous  also  was  the  effect  on  ordinary  Christian 
life,  on  the  men  at  the  lower  level  as  well  as  those  on 
the  higher.  The  two  classes  were  set  against  each 
other,  and  this  division  of  the  Christian  life  turned 
the  Church,  from  being  the  whole  body  of  believers 
with  equal  rights  and  duties,  into  an  ecclesiastical 
aristocracy,  and  worship  became  a  service  performed 
by  the  priest  for  the  laity.  Practically  it  meant  a 
blow  at  Christian  morality,  for  it  lowered  the  tone 
of  secular  society,  not  merely  by  the  loss  of  so  many 
earnest  men  who  might  have  kept  the  world  pure, 
but  most  of  all  by  making  it  understood  that  ordinary 
believers  were  not  expected  to  come  up  to  the  high 
ideal.  Men  who  did  not  take  the  vows  might  be 
selfish,  and  proud,  and  worldly,  and  yet  be  Chris- 
tians, on  a  lower  plane,  it  is  true,  but  still  accepted 
by  the  Church  in  spite  of  their  sins.  The  practical 
result  meant  discouragement  of  all  who  were  admit- 
tedly on  the  lowel  level,  who  mixed  in  the  world,  and 
married,  and  did  the  usual  business  of  life.  When 
the  life  of  seclusion  was  exalted  above  the  common 
life  of  Christians,  the  effect  was  as  we  might  expect. 
Much  was  not  asked  from  the  common  believer,  and 
gradually  the  ordinary  business  of  life  lost  its  place  as 
the  recognised  sphere  of  the  Christian  calling.  This 
tendency,  even  at  an  early  time,  is  casually  illustrated 
by  Clement  of  Alexandria  who  tells  us  that  when  he 
sought  to  influence  public  morals  he  was  met  by  the  ex- 
cuse, "  We  cannot  all  be  philosophers  and  ascetics.  We 
are  ignorant  people,  and  cannot  read  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures ;  why  should  we  be  subjected  to  such  rigorous  de- 
mands ?  "  ^     It  was  a  very  natural  retort.     When  the 

*  Clemens,  Padag.  i.  3, 


MEDIAEVAL  SAINTHOOD  261 

dignity  of  the  ordinary  Christian  calling  is  lost  sight 
of,  the  standard  of  piety  in  th€  lower  positions  is  bound 
to  suffer. 

The  distinction  into  two  classes  gives  also  an  excuse 
to  worldly  men  to  ride  off  on  the  plea  that  they  had 
no  call  to  the  life  of  seclusion,  and  were  only  ordinary 
people  living  in  the  midst  of  the  world,  and  therefore 
could  not  be  expected  to  display  the  heroic  virtue 
natural  enough  among  the  perfect.  The  true  ideal  of 
the  Christian  life  has  been  obscured  by  the  error  that 
the  holiness,  which  gives  a  man  a  title  to  be  a  saint, 
has  nothing  to  do  with  common  life.  But  holiness  is 
not  a  negative  thing,  a  state  of  being  free  from  con- 
tamination, avoiding  the  stains  of  the  world;  it  is  a 
state  of  being  and  becoming,  a  progressive  mastery 
over  Hfe  and  the  conditions  of  life,  a  growth  into 
spiritual  power;  and  to  this  all  are  called,  to  live  in 
God  through  all  the  vicissitudes  of  lot,  amid  all  the 
work  and  relationships  of  the  world,  inspired  with  the 
spirit  of  faith,  and  prayer,  and  communion.  It  is 
the  nobler  task,  and  the  harder.  The  moral  and  spirit- 
ual demands  made  on  us  are  concerned  with  our  actual 
lives  in  the  world.  If  to  flee  from  duty  and  the  hard 
sphere  where  it  is  not  easy  to  be  true  to  our  highest 
ideal,  if  to  escape  from  the  seductions  of  the  world 
to  some  convenient  desert,  is  the  condition  of  saint- 
hood, then  we  are  not  all  called  to  be  saints.  The 
world  could  not  get  its  business  done  if  we  were  all 
saints  of  that  type. 

Besides,  that  is  often  the  path  of  cowardice.  In 
the  complexity  of  modem  life,  with  persistent  claims 
on  all  sides,  with  clamant  demands  on  time  and 
thought,  with  its  many  unsolved  problems,  the  simplest 


a62  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

way  out  of  all  difficulties  is  to  throw  it  up.  The  easiest 
way  to  unloose  the  knot  is  to  cut  the  cord.  The  desert 
is  always  easier  than  Corinth;  the  hermit's  cell  than 
the  market-place ;  the  cloister  than  the  hearth ;  but  the 
saints  of  Corinth,  of  the  market-place,  and  of  the 
hearth,  may  be  most  to  the  mind  of  Jesus.  There  is 
another  Martyrology  than  the  canonical  one,  which 
will  have  many  nameless  saints  consecrating  their  lives 
to  service,  the  sweet,  humble  souls  who  are  the  salt 
of  the  earth  and  save  it  from  corruption,  the  loving 
hearts  that  are  the  light  of  the  world. 

We  need  to  get  the  word  and  the  idea  of  sainthood 
back  to  its  New  Testament  usage  and  to  realise  that  it 
is  not  a  far-away  ideal  to  which  only  a  few  exceptional 
men  can  aspire,  but  a  task  to  which  all  are  summoned. 
We  must  avoid  all  distinctions,  which  would  create  a 
religious  aristocracy  in  the  great  commonwealth  of 
the  faith;  for  there  are  other  and  similar  ways  of 
perverting  the  Christian  ideal  for  all,  as  well  as  the 
Roman  Catholic  one.  We  may  create  distinctions 
by  laying  emphasis  on  the  mere  intellectual  appre- 
hension of  the  truth,  between  the  cultured  who  have 
entered  into  the  mysteries,  and  the  simple  believer; 
or  we  may  create  distinctions  even  in  the  name  of 
evangelical  religion.  The  term  '*  higher  holiness,"  for 
example,  which  is  common  in  certain  quarters,  is  a 
most  unfortunate  one,  though  we  must  sympathise 
with  every  attempt  to  raise  the  level  of  aspiration 
and  attainment.  The  danger  is  a  spiritual  exclusive- 
ness,  which  may  be  only  another  form  of  Pharisaism, 
as  well  as  leading  the  ordinary  Christian  to  imagine 
that  he  has  no  call  to  realise  to  the  full  the  Christian 


MEDIiEVAL  SAINTHOOD  263 

ideal.  It  is  the  common  task  to  adjust  all  the  duties 
and  relations  of  life  to  the  love  of  God,  which  makes 
its  imperious  claim  on  the  human  heart;  and  this 
task  is  not  the  exceptional  but  the  common  lot  of  all. 
By  dismissing  the  mediaeval  notion  of  sainthood, 
with  its  division  of  ethics,  we  will  get  back  the  moral 
dynamic  it  contains.  It  is  a  true  principle  of  morals 
that  men  will  become  what  they  are  trusted  to  be,  and 
will  do  what  is  expected  of  them,  will  approximate  not 
only  their  own  ideal  but  even  the  ideal  which  others  set 
up  for  them.  This  is  seen  in  the  education  of  children, 
where  the  system  of  distrust  is  always  a  failure.  A 
child  brought  up  by  that  method  will  almost  infallibly 
give  good  cause  for  the  distrust.  He  is  driven  to  it, 
to  justify  the  mean  and  poor  opinion  in  which  he  is 
held.  In  all  our  dealing  with  our  fellows  this  is  a  prin- 
ciple which  can  be  counted  on  for  much,  that  they  will 
be  what  is  laid  on  their  sense  of  honour  to  be.  The 
normal  conscience  rises  to  the  demands  made  on  it, 
and  easily  falls  to  the  limit  of  the  standard  expected 
from  it.  When  St.  Paul  wrote  to  the  Corinthians,  he 
called  them  saints,  though  his  epistles  reveal  sins  which 
would  have  made  a  less  stout  heart  despair  of  them. 
"  The  Church  of  God  in  Corinth,"  to  which  the  Apostle 
writes,  was  what  Bengel  calls  a  great  and  joyful 
paradox.  When  we  think  of  the  evil  reputation  which 
the  city  had  among  the  cities  of  the  ancient  world  as  a 
place  notorious  for  its  debauchery,  the  very  name  of 
Corinth  being  a  byword  for  loathsome  sin,  we  get  some 
idea  of  the  strange  combination  of  the  two  names  which 
make  Bengel  call  it  a  paradox.  But  the  circumstances 
which  made  it  a  great  and  joyful  paradox  made  the 
Apostle  all  the  more  anxious  to  lift  up  the  standard  of 


264  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

holy  living,  and  to  keep  it  up,  and  induced  him  to 
lay  stress  on  the  high  calling.  In  his  very  designation 
of  them  as  "  sanctified  and  called  to  be  saints  "  ^  he 
points  to  the  character  they  are  expected  to  display. 
He  reminds  them,  by  a  sort  of  glorious  anticipation, 
of  their  dignity,  that  they  may  stand  fast  in  their 
present  attainment,  and  may  even  rise  higher.  The 
process  is  stated  as  a  completion,  the  work  is  stated 
as  an  act,  but  there  is  no  contradiction  in  the  com- 
bination of  ideas.  It  just  means  that  they  are  conse- 
crated, and  so  are  called  to  the  consecrated  life. 

*  I  Cor.  i.  2. 


X 


THE  PHYSICAL  TREATMENT  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL 

UFE 

THOUGH  it  is  a  constant  danger  of  asceticism 
to  become  an  end  in  itself,  y^t  it  begins  usu- 
ally as  a  recognised  means  of  attaining  some 
coveted  spiritual  result,  not  merely  saving 
the  life  from  evil,  but  also  moving  it  to  a  higher  good. 
This  hope,  which  underlies  ascetic  practices,  is  based 
on  the  experience,  that  physical  treatment  does  affect 
the  whole  spiritual  condition.  It  is  found  as  a  matter 
of  fact  that  men  can  induce  certain  states  of  mind, 
and  even  seem  to  enter  into  divine  mysteries,  by  habits 
and  exercises  that  begin  with  the  body.  This  is  a 
region  of  great  difficulty,  where  exaggeration  is  fa- 
tally possible,  but  where  under-statement  of  the  facts 
is  also  very  common.  It  is  not  easy  to  thread  our 
way  in  a  sphere  like  this,  which  is  so  subtle  and  so 
delicate;  but  no  consideration  of  the  ascetic  ideal  can 
be  complete  without  taking  into  account  the  facts, 
which  indeed  give  it  its  perennial  vitality.  The  phys- 
ical treatment  of  the  spiritual  life  has  ever  been  a 
subject  of  fascination  to  men,  and  endless  have  been 
the  experiments  they  have  tried.  All  ascetic  practices, 
which  are  genuinely  religious,  are  accepted  as  the  ap- 
proved method  of  reaching  a  fuller  spiritual  commun- 
ion, and  of  attaining  a  religious  exaltation,  thought  to 
be  otherwise  impossible.    The  truth  at  the  bottom  of 

265 


266  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

them  all  is  the  admittedly  close  connection  of  our  bodily 
acts  with  the  state  of  the  mind  and  even  of  the  soul. 
There  is  here  an  interesting  illustration  of  the 
strange  manner  in  which  human  thought  goes  in  cir- 
cles, so  that  what  at  first  seem  utter  extremes  meet. 
All  such  physical  treatment  of  the  soul  is  a  tacit  ac- 
knowledgment of  the  unity  of  man's  being,  and  yet 
many  of  the  ascetic  practices  go  rather  on  the  principle 
that  a  true  man  is  a  disembodied  spirit  having  as  far 
as  possible  shuffled  off  the  mortal  coil.  Self -mortifica- 
tion attempts  to  feed  the  soul  by  starving  all  bodily 
instincts  and  crushing  out  all  natural  impulses.  Thus 
as  we  have  said  extremes  meet,  because  a  fundamental 
error  of  all  ascetic  systems  is  the  subdivision  of  a  hu- 
man being  into  parts,  as  if  body  can  be  regarded  as 
something  apart  from  mind  and  soul,  and  as  if  soul  can 
only  be  perfected  when  the  body  is  utterly  renounced ; 
and  yet  the  very  attempts  are  an  evidence  of  the  truth 
of  the  oneness  of  man's  nature ;  for  they  start  with  the 
fact  that  the  two  are  so  closely  united  that  the  soul  can 
be  helped  or  hindered  by  the  body.  The  great  fact, 
which  makes  the  ascetic  ideal  in  any  degree  reasonable, 
is  that  the  different  parts  of  the  being  of  man  are 
relative  to  each  other.  The  animal  part  cannot  be  iso- 
lated from  the  rest  of  his  nature.  This  can  be  most 
clearly  seen  by  remembering  that  the  body  is  indeed 
the  medium  of  all  knowledge.  Through  the  senses  we 
derive  the  impressions,  intellectual  and  spiritual,  which 
are  our  highest  possessions ;  and  these  impressions  are 
coloured  by  the  medium  through  which  they  pass. 
Man  is  a  unity;  not  a  duality  as  is  so  often  imagined 
in  ascetic  thought  (flesh  and  spirit  joined  together  in' 
a  loathsome  union,  like  a  living  prisoner  chained  to  a 


PHYSICAL  TREATiMENT  OF   SOUL  267 

dead  corpse)  ;  nor  a  triad  (body  and  mind  and  soul, 
each  dwelling  apart  with  a  life  of  its  own).  We  can 
make  distinctions  in  our  nature  for  convenience  of 
speech,  but  they  must  be  confessedly  inexact.  Man 
is  one  and  indivisible ;  the  life  that  he  lives  in  the  flesh 
is  the  life  that  he  lives  in  the  soul.  We  can  classify  in 
a  broad  way,  but  we  cannot  tell  even  where  mind  or 
soul  begin. 

The  connection  between  body  and  mind  is  a  com- 
monplace of  thought  with  us,  but  it  is  not  yet  a  com- 
monplace of  practice.  In  the  training  and  education  of 
children,  for  example,  how  difficult  it  is  to  steer  a 
straight  course  between  the  two  extremes  that  are 
possible  here.  We  constantly  find  a  swing  of  the  pen- 
dulum in  prevailing  notions  of  education  held  by 
people.  At  one  time  physical  culture  is  put  first,  and 
is  almost  exclusively  attended  to,  till  we  are  afflicted 
with  the  idolatry  of  mascularity ;  then  we  find  a  period 
when  the  worse  error  gets  hold  which  considers  only 
mental  training,  and  looks  upon  it  as  a  great  thing  if 
by  hot-house  methods  child-prodigies  can  be  produced. 
Yet  true  education  must  aim  at  co-ordinate  develop- 
ment in  this  matter,  as  Montaigne  says  wisely,  "  I 
would  have  the  disposition  of  his  limbs  formed  at  the 
same  time  as  his  mind;  for  it  is  not  a  soul,  it  is  not 
a  body,  we  are  training  up,  but  a  man,  and  we  ought 
not  to  divide  him."  As  a  matter  of  fact,  neither  in 
education  nor  in  life,  can  we  divide  human  nature  into 
parts  without  inevitable  loss  and  error.  The  relation 
of  mind  to  body  is  a  very  close  one,  in  which  each 
affects  the  other  for  good  or  evil.  We  are  more  depend- 
ent on  physical  conditions  for  our  happiness,  and 
even  for  our  goodness,  than  we  perhaps  like  to  admit. 


268  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAIN! 

It  is  astonishing  how  our  view  of  life  takes  its  colour 
from  the  state  of  health.  Physicians  know  that,  if 
they  could  cure  the  sick  soul  in  many  cases,  they  would 
get  at  the  secret  of  the  sick  body ;  and  ministers  know 
that,  if  sometimes  they  could  produce  conditions  and 
environment  of  health,  they  could  bring  many  a  man 
to  a  different  way  of  thinking.  In  a  vague  fashion 
we  recognise  these  facts,  but  as  a  rule  we  are  in  the 
dark  about  the  mystery  of  the  interpenetrating  influ- 
ence of  body  on  mind,  and  the  reflex  action  of  mind 
on  body.  There  is  a  great  future  for  mental  therapeu- 
tics, when  it  gets  free  from  the  charlatan  and  the 
quack.  We  know  in  general  terms,  as  a  maxim  of 
both  morals  and  of  medicine,  that 

"  Faults  in  the  life  breed  errors  in  the  brain. 
And  these  reciprocally  those  again; 
The  mind  and  conduct  mutually  imprint 
And  stamp  their  image  in  each  other's  mint." 

It  may  seem,  as  it  has  often  done  to  some  hypersensi- 
tive minds,  a  degradation  that  the  higher  nature  should 
be  so  dependent  on  the  lower,  and  that  intellectual  and 
even  moral  qualities  should  gain  or  lose  tone  accord- 
ing to  the  state  of  the  health.  Whether  it  is  a  degrada- 
tion or  not,  it  is  wise  to  accept  facts,  and  this  close 
connection  of  body  and  mind  is  a  solemn  fact. 

Looked  at  properly  it  contains  no  degrading  ideas, 
but  rather  suggests  the  sacredness  of  all  the  laws  of 
our  nature.  It  makes  health  a  duty,  and  every  wilful 
disobedience  to  the  laws  of  health  becomes  a  crime; 
for  it  not  only  punishes  the  body  where  the  sin  took 
place,  but  affects  the  whole  man.  We  are  learning 
the  truth  of  this  in  education,  and  we  see  that  man 


PHYSICAL  TREATMENT  OF  SOUL     269 

needs  to  be  a  good  animal,  before  the  best  of  anything 
else  is  possible.  The  keenest  brain  needs  a  foundation 
of  physical  health  to  do  its  best  work.  Jowett,  the 
late  Master  of  Balliol,  said  that  one  of  the  causes 
of  failure  at  the  University  of  some  promising  stu- 
dents was  neglect  of  health,  either  through  the  care- 
lessness of  ignorance  or  through  moral  evil.  Many 
a  man  learns,  after  it  is  too  late,  that  he  is  not  fit  for 
the  prolonged  mental  efforts  he  might  have  been  but 
for  early  folly. 

Sir  Walter  Scott  speaks  in  his  Journal  of  how  he 
suffered  from  fluttering  of  the  heart,  and  of  the  dispir- 
iting effect  it  had  on  him,  though  he  knew  that  it  was 
nothing  organic  but  was  merely  nervous.  He  says 
that  in  youth  this  complaint  used  to  throw  him  into  in- 
voluntary passions  of  causeless  tears.  He  manfully  set 
himself  to  drive  it  away  by  exercise,  though  he  wishes 
he  had  been  a  mechanic.  He  was  a  man  of  healthy 
nature  in  every  sense,  but  he  too  had  his  times  of  de- 
pression. At  the  time  he  made  the  entry  in  his  Journal, 
he  had  been  overworked  and  overstrained,  and  con- 
fesses he  had  not  taken  exercise  for  four  or  five  days. 
He  asks,  as  many  brain-workers  have  often  done, 
whether  it  is  the  body  brings  it  on  the  mind  or  the 
mind  on  the  body,  though  he  accepts  it  as  part  of  the 
price  he  had  to  pay  for  other  things.  "  As  to  body  and 
mind,  I  fancy  I  might  as  well  enquire  whether  the 
fiddle  or  the  fiddlestick  makes  the  tune."  *  It  is  folly 
to  shut  our  eyes  to  the  fact  that  man  is  subject  to  the 
organic  laws,  which  govern  all  life.  Every  brain- 
worker  has  to  learn  something  of  the  physical  limits, 
under  which  he  must  work.     Nature  does  not  repeal 

'^  Journal,  entry  March  14th,  1826. 


270  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

her  punishments  easily,  and  when  we  reaHse  that  we 
often  have  to  pay  not  in  mere  physical  uneasiness,  but 
in  intellectual  deprivation,  we  should  feel  the  responsi- 
bility. When  the  harmony  of  life  is  out  of  tune  it  is 
often  found,  as  Scott  found  in  that  particular  case, 
that  it  is  the  fiddle  that  is  out  of  order  and  not  the 
fiddlestick,  the  body  and  not  the  mind.  From  such  a 
point  of  view  wilful  neglect  of  health  is  criminal,  dif- 
fering only  in  degree  from  suicide.  Loss  of  time, 
loss  of  work,  languid  performance  of  duty,  result  from 
ill-health.  Our  accountants  can  give  us  the  average 
number  of  days  lost  per  year  to  the  community  by 
illness,  but  who  can  calculate  how  much  of  that  is 
self-caused,  or  is  produced  through  self-neglect?  On 
the  whole  it  is  a  good  thing  that  the  tide  has  turned 
in  education  and  that  we  have  ceased  to  think  that  it 
pays  to  over-educate  children  and  undermine  their 
constitution  by  undue  stimulation  of  brain.  The  brain 
is  a  sensitive  organ,  the  capacity  of  which  is  affected 
in  many  ways.  Perfect  sanity  of  judgment,  penetra- 
tion of  mind,  good  sense,  acute  discrimination,  reason- 
ableness, are  all  more  likely  to  be  found  in  a  state 
of  health  than  in  a  state  of  debility. 

But  this  relation  of  the  body  seems  to  go  deeper 
still  into  life;  for  we  find  the  effect  of  bodily  condi- 
tion in  the  springs  of  moral  thinking  and  acting  as 
well  as  of  purely  mental  states.  Functional  derange- 
ments tend  to  become  organic,  and  organic  disease 
preys  not  on  the  body  merely,  but  disturbs  the  brain, 
affects  the  will,  and  prevents  a  man  from  being  fully 
master  of  his  own  designs.  Irritated  nerves  are  re- 
sponsible for  some  abnormal  moral  conditions  as  well 
as  for  some  morbid  states  of  mind.     Cheerfulness  is 


PHYSICAL  TREATMENT  OF   SOUL    271 

often  a  matter  not  of  superior  virtue  but  of  healthy 
digestion.  The  sins  of  temper,  which  mean  pain  to 
others,  as  well  as  to  the  man  himself,  are  often  the 
result  of  physical  prostration  or  unstrung  nerves.  The 
jaundiced  eye  sees  everything  in  its  own  hue.  Much 
of  Carlyle's  philosophy  and  many  of  his  judgments 
had  their  roots  in  his  dyspepsia.  There  is  a  close  con- 
nection of  the  laws  of  health  with  the  laws  of  morality. 
A  truly  healthy  man,  with  cleanness  of  blood  and  clear 
brain  and  healthy  tastes,  will  keep  free  from  some 
evils  almost  by  instinct;  and  on  the  other  hand  the 
moral  standpoint  given  by  religion  reacts  to  create 
healthy  conditions  for  the  brain  and  the  other  bodily 
functions. 

This  is  along  the  line  of  the  many  facts  which  are 
being  accepted  to-day,  as  to  the  reflex  influence  of 
the  mind  on  the  body.  States  of  feeling  can  create 
physical  conditions;  cerebral  excitement,  as  every 
doctor  knows,  affects  bodily  functions.  Anger  can 
burst  a  blood-vessel ;  fear  can  paralyse  the  nerve  cen- 
tres; grief  can  make  a  young  man  old  in  a  night; 
care  paints  her  image  on  the  face  and  bows  the  shoul- 
ders in  a  pathetic  stoop.  The  resources  of  the  mind 
brought  to  bear  on  the  body  can  sometimes  banish 
disease  in  a  manner  which  is  almost  uncanny.  Further, 
health  is  contagious  as  well  as  disease.  Half  of  the 
secret  of  the  success  of  some  of  our  great  doctors  lies 
in  the  moral  qualities,  the  courage,  faith,  brightness, 
hopefulness,  which  seem  to  be  stored  in  their  health- 
ful temper  and  nature.  The  mind,  by  appealing  to 
faith  and  hope  in  others,  is  able  also  to  influence  their 
very  bodies;  and  this  old  truth  is  what  enables  many 
quackeries  of  the  faith-healing  sects  to  live  at  all. 


272  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

Now  the  calm  acceptance  of  such  facts  is  the  right 
poHcy  for  us.  The  lesson  of  this  close  interaction  of 
mind  and  body  is  that  we  should  put  the  whole  treat- 
ment of  the  body  on  a  moral  basis.  De  Quincey 
closes  the  section  dealing  with  Health  of  his  treatise 
on  Casuistry  with  some  strong  words,  which  have 
added  weight  from  his  own  mistakes  in  dealing  with 
himself,  "  Casuistry  justly  and  without  infringing  any 
truth  of  Christianity  urges  the  care  of  health  as  the 
basis  of  all  moral  action,  because,  in  fact,  of  all  per- 
fectly voluntary  action.  Every  impulse  of  bad  health 
jars  or  untunes  some  string  in  the  fine  harp  of  hu- 
man volition;  and,  because  a  man  cannot  be  a  moral 
being  but  in  the  proportion  of  his  free  agency,  there- 
fore it  is  clear  that  no  man  can  be  in  a  high  sense 
moral,  except  in  so  far  as  through  health  he  com- 
mands his  bodily  powers,  and  is  not  commanded  by 
them."  ^ 

Of  course  we  know  the  limitations  of  any  such 
statement,  which  looks  as  if  we  could  put  a  good 
digestion  in  place  of  a  good  conscience.  A  man  of 
perfect  physique  may  have  no  mind  at  all  to  speak 
of,  and  be  utterly  crass  in  his  moral  sentiments. 
What  it  means  is  that,  other  things  being  equal,  a 
man  in  good  health  will  do  better  work,  and  be  more 
trustworthy  in  his  thoughts  and  judgments,  than  if 
he  suffered  from  ill-health.  It  has  also  to  be  remem- 
bered that  many  a  time  pain  of  body  has  taught  the 
deepest  lessons,  and  that  such  pain  has  even  been  a 
school  of  saints,  in  which  they  have  learned  patience 
and  faith  and  charity,  and  have  hushed  their  souls  into 
peace  before  God.    Many  a  sweet  and  pure  character 

^Collected  Works,  vol.  viii.  p.  355. 


PHYSICAL  TREATMENT  OF   SOUL    273 

has  been  formed  through  severe  bodily  discipline. 
They  have  made  the  very  rod  a  staff  to  comfort  and 
support  them.  This  does  not,  however,  justify  any 
wilful  neglect,  or  wicked  and  foolish  action  against  the 
laws  of  health.  Suffering  may  have,  as  in  countless 
cases  it  has  had,  beneficent  results,  deepening  the  very 
soul,  and  enriching  the  life ;  but  it  all  depends  on  how 
it  comes  and  how  it  is  received.  Instead  of  refining, 
it  may  only  brutalise,  and  coarsen  still  more  the  fibre. 
If  the  weakness  of  body  is  the  result  of  excess  and 
sin,  if  the  lassitude  has  been  self-sought  and  the  pain 
self-inflicted,  even  though  it  does  ultimately  bring 
wisdom,  it  is  a  joyless  wisdom,  the  sort  of  wisdom 
which  comes,  when  the  heart  is  eaten  out,  when  life 
has  lost  its  beauty  and  grace,  and  the  world  which 
should  have  been  the  scene  of  purity  of  thought  and 
grace  of  speech  and  nobility  of  deed,  has  become  a 
place  of  mourning  and  ashes. 

One  true  moral,  therefore,  which  we  should  draw 
from  the  close  connection  of  body  with  mind  and  spirit, 
is  that  the  body  should  be  treated  sacredly,  as  an  in- 
tegral part  of  human  nature.  Every  act  of  intemper- 
ance of  whatever  sort,  every  sin  against  the  physical 
constitution,  every  wilful  neglect  of  the  laws  of  health 
and  moral  life,  is  injuring  the  self  in  ways  too  delicate 
to  estimate,  and  is  dimming  the  radiance  of  the  soul. 
Sin  writes  its  terrible  retribution  on  the  very  nerve 
and  tissue.  On  this  subject  we  find  men  among  the 
prophets,  who  do  not  always  accept  every  Christian 
position.  Herbert  Spencer  writes  with  prophetic  ear- 
nestness, "  Few  seem  conscious  that  there  is  such  a 
thing  as  physical  morality.  Men's  habitual  words  and 
acts  imply  the  idea  that  they  are  at  liberty  to  treat 


274  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

their  bodies  as  they  please.  Disorders  entailed  by  dis- 
obedience to  Nature's  dictates  they  regard  simply  as 
grievances;  not  as  effects  of  a  conduct  more  or  less 
flagitious.  Though  the  evil  consequences  inflicted  on 
their  dependents,  and  on  future  generations,  are  often 
as  great  as  those  caused  by  crime;  yet  they  do  not 
think  themselves  in  any  degree  criminal.  It  is  true 
that  in  the  case  of  drunkenness  the  viciousness  of  a 
bodily  transgression  is  recognised;  but  none  appear 
to  infer  that  if  this  bodily  transgression  is  vicious  so 
too  is  every  bodily  transgression.  The  fact  is  that  all 
breaches  of  the  laws  of  health  are  physical  sins."  ^  Just 
because  we  do  not  place  life  on  a  physical  basis  this 
should  appeal  to  us;  we  are  all  the  more  bound  to 
accept  it  because  life  has  a  moral  basis.  Mental  vigour 
and  spiritual  insight  are  not  got  through  despising  the 
physical  side  of  life. 

We  have  been  led  to  state  one  of  the  true  conclu- 
sions which  should  follow  from  the  fact  of  the  con- 
nection of  body  with  the  higher  life,  before  dealing 
with  the  mistakes  which  have  arisen  in  this  region. 
The  ascetic  mistake  starts  from  the  fact  that  the  soul 
is  unmistakably  sensitive  to  the  body,  and  that  all 
the  spiritual  experiences  are  bound  up  with  the  phys- 
ical life.  Self-control,  in  bodily  acts  such  as  eating 
and  drinking,  does  without  doubt  affect  more  than 
the  body;  it  disposes  towards  a  state  of  mind  and  a 
moral  habit,  which  are  essential  to  spiritual  progress. 
Further,  a  resolute  disciplined  habit  of  separation  from 
the  distractions  of  earth  gives  the  suitable  sphere  for 
the  holy  meditation,  by  means  of  which  the  soul  grows 

'Herbert  Spencer,  Education  (Pop.  Ed.),  p.  171. 


PHYSICAL  TREATMENT  OF  SOUL    27  s 

deep  and  strong.  Self-control  of  some  kind,  and  some 
form  of  solitude,  seem  necessary  instruments  of  de- 
votional culture.  These,  then,  are  the  facts  which 
all  religious  experience  warrants;  and  the  natural 
temptation  arises  to  exaggerate  these  methods,  and  to 
work  upon  the  soul  according  to  prescribed  forms  to 
attain  spiritual  exaltation.  If  a  man  is  ambitious  of 
penetrating  into  the  innermost  secrets  of  the  celestial 
light,  it  is  natural  to  assume  that  he  can  at  least  go 
far,  if  he  is  willing  to  shake  off  every  clog,  and  will 
shrink  from  no  extreme  of  self-denial.  Separation  and 
mortification,  as  complete  as  possible,  come  to  be  ac- 
cepted as  the  approved  and  infallible  methods  of  reach- 
ing the  heavenly  vision  and  entering  into  spiritual 
communion.  It  becomes  easy  to  believe  that  any  un- 
common experience  is  an  evidence  of  success;  and 
thus  we  find  men,  who  are  eager  for  personal  illumi- 
nation, confusing  the  most  grotesque  experiences  with 
spiritual  blessedness.  They  do  not  *'  try  the  spirits 
whether  they  are  of  God."  ^ 

The  story  of  human  error  in  this  region  is  not  a 
pleasant  one  to  read,  though  we  recognise  the  facts 
which  have  given  such  error  currency.  Delusions, 
visions,  ecstatic  states,  mystical  hallucinations,  have 
deceived  men  into  imagining  that  these  are  tests  of 
spirituality:  and  often  they  are  found  divorced  from 
all  moral  law.  A  great  deal  of  the  self-denial  and 
the  discipline  insisted  on  in  ascetic  devotion,  is  un- 
real, and  much  easier  than  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit 
in  humility,  and  meekness,  and  love;  as  forms  of 
outward  penance  are  always  easier  to  the  mass  of 
men  than  real  inward  discipline.    By  means  of  exer- 

*  I  John  iv.  I. 


276  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

cises,  a  man  can  put  himself  into  a  state  of  dream, 
rising  sometimes  to  ecstasy;  but  it  may  only  be  a 
surface  discipline,  without  true  training  of  mind,  and 
will,  and  imagination,  and  heart.  When  we  put  the 
stress  on  the  mere  seeing  of  visions  or  some  emotional 
exaltation,  then  what  best  produce  such  are  looked 
upon  as  the  highest  religious  instruments.  We  know, 
for  instance,  that  the  hypnotic  state  can  be  induced  by 
fixed  staring,  but  we  know  that  mesmerism  has  in  itself 
no  religious  significance.  Hypnotists  also  induce 
trance  by  suggestion,  by  superimposing  their  will  on 
the  patient's  will;  and  this  can  be  done  by  a  man  on 
himself,  where  he  is  so  to  speak,  both  the  patient  and 
the  operator.  If  a  man  resigns  his  mind  to  credulity, 
he  can  produce  almost  any  state  of  mind  he  desires, 
with  consequences  both  on  bodily  condition  on  the 
one  side,  and  on  what  seems  like  spiritual  condition 
on  the  other;  and  so  we  find  the  same  type  of  mind 
producing  in  one  a  weak  hypochondria,  and  in  another 
a  mystic  exaltation  that  seems  to  raise  him  above 
physical  conditions  altogether. 

A  mistaken  notion  of  what  is  the  true  character  of 
spirituality  is  at  the  bottom  of  many  of  the  grotesque 
practices  which  we  see  appearing  and  reappearing 
in  history,  all  based  on  the  physical  treatment  of  the 
soul.  The  penitential  discipline  of  the  mediaeval 
Church  gave  ground  for  the  extravagances ;  for  that 
discipline  undoubtedly  seemed  to  effect  what  was 
claimed  for  it.  Practices  like  self-laceration,  and  the 
systematic  weakening  of  the  body  by  prolonged  fasts 
and  watchings,  by  severe  scourgings,  by  wearing 
sackcloth,  chains,  girdles  with  pricks  to  wound  the 
flesh,  and  such  like,  had  as  their  impelling  cause  the 


PHYSICAL  TREATMENT  OF  SOUL    277 

desire  to  produce  a  state  which  was  held  to  give  abun- 
dant entrance  into  divine  mysteries.  It  was  not  the 
mere  desire  for  notoriety  which  gave  rise  to  the 
flagellants,  who  lashed  themselves  into  an  ecstatic 
fury ;  for  since  the  Church  sanctioned  such  things  as 
an  authorised  method  of  discipline,  it  was  naturally 
assumed  that  the  more  complete  the  discipline  the 
more  perfect  would  be  the  results.  In  Church  history 
we  find  paroxysms  of  flagellation,  such  as  the  great 
recrudescence  seen  during  the  period  of  the  Black 
Death  in  the  fourteenth  century,  which  spread  over  a 
great  part  of  Europe,  till  it  had  to  be  put  down  by 
the  Church.  Some  of  the  flagellants  developed  hereti- 
cal views,  renounced  the  sacraments  of  the  Church  as 
useless  to  those  who  accepted  complete  mortification, 
for  whom  the  one  and  only  sacrament  needed  was  that 
of  the  bloody  baptism  of  the  scourge.  The  discipline 
of  the  lash  was  revived  by  the  Jesuits,  and  received 
ecclesiastical  sanction.  Similarly,  sects  have  arisen 
constantly,  and  have  kept  ground  for  a  time,  the 
chief  item  of  whose  creed  seems  to  be  some  form  of 
dancing ;  from  the  Euchites  of  the  fifth  century,  called 
also  Messalians  or  Chorentes  from  their  mystic  dances, 
down  to  the  Shakers,  who  have  been  popularly  so 
called  from  the  quivering  motion  of  their  body  in  their 
solemn  religious  dances  or  processions.  The  author 
has  seen  Moors  dancing  and  cutting  themselves,  till 
they  fell  down  in  a  sort  of  madness,  to  the  great  ad- 
miration of  the  spectators,  who  looked  on  them  as 
peculiarly  holy  men.  The  history  of  ecclesiastical  fasts 
also  cannot  be  complete  without  taking  into  account 
the  facts,  which  seem  to  authorise  the  physical  treat- 
ment of  the  spiritual  life.    Many  of  the  symptoms  can 


278  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

be  explained  on  pathological  grounds,  the  connection 
between  nervous  affections  and  ecstatic  visions,  the 
exaltation  of  feeling  rising  to  enthusiasm  and  issuing 
in  fantastic  visionary  ideas  of  bliss.  The  ground- 
work of  truth  is  that  the  treatment  of  the  body  does 
determine  to  some  extent  both  mental  and  spiritual 
results,  so  that  it  is  a  natural  step  to  invent  artificial 
discipline  to  hasten  these  results. 

Thus,  apart  from  the  gross,  unregulated  practices 
which  we  have  noticed,  all  systems  of  ascetic  devotion 
make  much  of  the  mechanics  of  prayer,  and  methods 
of  solitude,  and  preparation  of  soul  by  fasting  and 
such  like.  This  is  a  difficult  region,  where  hard  and 
fast  lines  cannot  be  drawn.  It  is  impossible  to  take 
a  clear  attitude  of  condemnation  since  method  of  some 
sort  seems  necessary  here  as  in  other  spheres  of  cul- 
ture. Protestantism  has  suffered  much  by  often  rcr 
nouncing  method  altogether;  and  it  must  be  admitted 
that  we  have  among  us  too  little  devotional  culture, 
and  have  paid  too  little  attention  to  the  development 
of  the  contemplative  life  generally.  Something,  how- 
ever, is  to  be  said  for  this  distrust  of  method,  when 
we  think  of  the  errors  committed  in  its  name,  and  of 
the  tendency  to  subordinate  real  spiritual  fruits  to 
mechanical  forms,  resulting  in  spurious  spirituality. 

A  noteworthy  instance  of  a  consistent  treatment 
of  the  body  is  found  in  the  exercises  prescribed  by 
Ignatius  Loyola,  the  founder  of  the  Jesuits.  In  order 
to  see  the  danger  of  the  system  inaugurated,  we  do 
not  need  to  believe  with  Carlyle  that  Jesuitism  is  in 
its  spirit  only  "  an  apotheosis  of  falsity,  a  kind  of  subtle 
quintessence  and  deadly  virus  of  lying,"  and  the  result 
of  Ignatius'  black  militia  on  Europe  merely  an  "  abomi- 


PHYSICAL  TREATMENT  OF  SOUL    279 

nable  mud-deluge,"  though  Carlyle  had  historic  reason 
for  some  of  his  indignation;  nor  need  we  look  upon 
Ignatius  himself  as  a  scandalous  mortal,  a  man  full 
of  prurient  elements  from  the  first,  '*  A  bad  man,  I 
think;  not  good  by  nature;  and  by  destiny  swollen 
into  a  very  Ahriman  of  badness."  ^  He  was  a  sincere, 
and  from  his  own  point  of  view  a  devout  man,  ear- 
nestly desirous  of  furthering  religion  in  himself  and 
throughout  th^e  world.  His  Spiritual  Exercises,  full  as 
they  are  of  false  religious  conceptions,  are  also  full 
of  a  passionate  desire  to  discipline  his  soul,  and  to 
make  it  a  channel  of  divine  grace.  They  were  begun 
for  his  own  spiritual  benefit,  and  were  afterwards 
given  to  train  the  order  he  established.  The  great 
thought  of  the  book  is  method,  using  rigidly  and  per- 
sistently the  prescribed  mechanics  of  devotion.  Not 
only  the  subjects  of  meditation,  and  the  special  virtues 
and  graces  desired,  but  also  the  times,  and  postures, 
3jid  the  details  of  manner  are  all  regulated.  The 
exercitant  is  told  how  he  is  to  stand,  and  when  to 
shut  his  eyes,  and  for  how  long,  during  his  contem- 
plation. At  one  time  he  is  to  stand  for  the  space 
of  a  Pater  noster  one  or  two  paces  from  the  place 
in  which  he  is  about  to  meditate,  and  make  an  act 
of  reverence  or  humiliation;  at  another  he  is  to  vary 
his  posture  during  the  contemplation,  at  one  time 
kneeling,  at  another  prostrate  on  the  earth,  or  stretched 
on  the  ground  with  face  upward,  now  seated,  now 
standing.  Then  having  finished  the  exercise,  he  is  to 
examine  for  the  space  of  a  quarter  of  an  hour  how  he 
has  succeeded  in  the  contemplation.  Again,  he  is  to 
deprive  himself  of  all  light,  shutting  the  shutters  and 

"Carlyle,  Latter-Day  Pamphlets — {Jesuitism^. 


28o  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

doors,  during  the  time  he  is  m  the  room.  He  is  to 
learn  to  restrain  his  eyes  while  speaking  to  people,  only 
looking  at  them  when  receiving  or  dismissing  them. 
These  exercises  are  to  be  accompanied  with  penance, 
which  is  divided  into  interior  and  exterior  penance, 
the  former  consisting  in  grieving  for  sin,  and  resolving 
not  to  commit  sin,  the  latter,  which  is  the  fruit  of  the 
interior,  consists  in  chastisement  for  sins  committed, 
and  this  is  inflicted  chiefly  in  three  ways.  First,  in 
regard  to  food,  not  in  cutting  off  what  is  superfluous, 
which  is  not  penance  but  temperance,  but  in  retrench- 
ing what  is  suitable,  "  and  the  more  we  retrench  the 
greater  and  better  is  the  penance,  provided  only  the 
person  be  not  injured  and  no  notable  weakness  ensue."  ^ 
The  second  is  in  regard  to  sleep,  and  here  again  it  is 
not  leaving  off  what  is  superfluous,  but  in  leaving  off 
conveniences,  and  the  more  this  is  done  the  better  the 
penance — with  the  same  proviso  as  before  that  no 
injury  is  done.  The  third  manner  is  to  chastise  the 
flesh  by  causing  it  sensible  pain,  which  is  to  be  inflicted 
by  wearing  a  hair-cloth,  cords,  or  iron  chains  next 
the  skin,  by  disciplining  or  bruising  the  body,  and  by 
other  kinds  of  austerities.  Pain,  not  sickness,  is  to  be 
the  result  aimed  at,  pain  sensible  to  the  flesh  that  will 
not  penetrate  to  the  bone;  and  so  the  instrument 
prescribed  as  most  convenient  is  a  lash  of  small  cords, 
that  will  cause  pain  exteriorly  without  injuring  the 
health.  The  rules  for  regulating  food  are  along  the 
same  lines.  Pious  contemplation  about  the  lives  of 
the  saints  is  prescribed  while  taking  food,  to  take  the 
mind  away,  that  there  be  less  delight  and  sensible 
pleasure  in  the  act  of  eating.  Here  again  sickness 
^Spiritual  Exercises — First  Week:    Additions. 


PHYSICAL  TREATMENT  OF  SOUL    281 

is  to  be  avoided,  but  the  more  a  man  can  give  up 
the  oftener  he  will  "  experience  interior  lights,  and 
consolations,  and  divine  inspirations."  ^  Ignatius 
thought  he  found  these  consolations  and  inspirations 
through  such  methods;  and  we  have  seen  in  what 
sense  it  was  true  that  a  certain  exaltation  of  emotion 
can  be  produced,  which  is  easily  mistaken  for  a 
spiritual  state. 

This  is  confirmed  by  some  of  the  methods  ^  of 
prayer,  which  Ignatius  orders.  In  one  method  the 
exercitant  is  to  keep  his  eyes  shut  or  fixed  on  one 
spot,  say  the  word  Pater,  and  dwell  on  the  consider- 
ation of  this  word  so  long  as  he  finds  meanings, 
comparisons,  relish,  and  consolation  in  thoughts  about 
this  word ;  and  he  is  to  act  in  the  same  way  in  regard 
to  each  word  of  the  Lord's  Prayer  or  other  prayer. 
This  method  is  to  be  continued  for  one  hour.  Another 
method  is  the  rhythmical,  which  consists  in  saying 
one  word  of  the  Lord's  Prayer  at  each  breath  or  respi- 
ration, so  that .  only  one  word  is  said  between  each 
breath,  and  in  the  length  of  time  between  each  breath 
attention  is  to  be  paid  to  the  signification  of  the  word. 

We  need  say  nothing  as  to  how  such  a  system  con- 
flicts with  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  who  condemned  all 
"  vain  repetition  as  the  heathen  do."  We  can  see  how 
such  a  methodised  system  of  devotion  makes  a  suit- 
able beginning  for  novices  who  seek  to  enter  the  order 
of  the  Jesuits,  which  drills  its  members  into  obedience, 
and  passive  acceptance  of  commands,  and  the  com- 
plete giving  up  of  the  individual  will.  We  are,  how- 
ever, not  concerned   with  the  achievements  and  de- 

*  Spiritual  Exercises — Third  Week. 
•Fourth  Week:    Three  Methods  of  Prayer. 


282  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

merits  of  the  Jesuit  system,  but  with  the  physical 
treatment  of  the  spiritual  life  so  plainly  set  forth  in  the 
Spiritual  Exercises.  There  is  a  business-like  utilisation 
of  the  mechanics  of  devotion  to  produce  the  best 
spiritual  results,  with  an  equal  business-like  care  that 
the  line  be  not  overstepped,  which  would  injure  health, 
and  injure  the  capacity  of  serving  the  order  and  the 
Qiurch.  The  system  has  succeeded  in  creating  a 
drilled  religious  militia,  with  an  unquestioning  obedi- 
ence, and  a  complete  discipline,  such  as  no  secular 
army  in  the  world  has  ever  equalled  or  approached; 
but  history  has  never  given  the  Jesuit  system  credit 
for  pure  spiritual  results,  which  can  be  compared  to 
their  practical  success.  The  truth  is  that  the  interior 
lights  and  consolations  and  inspirations,  which  such 
devotional  exercises  produce,  cannot  be  called  spiritual 
at  all.  They  are  mostly  sensuous  emotions,  physical 
in  their  character,  as  they  are  physical  in  their  origin. 
They  are  of  the  same  class  as  the  hypnotic  trance  got 
in  a  similar  way,  by  fixing  the  eyes  on  one  spot,  and 
by  resigning  the  will.  When  religion  is  chiefly  valued 
according  to  the  emotions  raised,  more  and  more 
stress  comes  to  be  laid  on  the  forms  which  produce 
emotion,  and  religion  itself  is  bound  to  degenerate. 
The  spiritual  life  is  inseparably  related  to  character, 
and  all  spiritual  truth  must  be  tested  by  conscience 
and  by  moral  law.  Only  by  moral  sympathy  can  we 
truly  enter  into  the  mind  of  Christ;  and  methods, 
which  are  artificially  imposed  to  reach  a  supposed 
sanctification,  can  hardly  escape  from  being  divorced 
from  moral  reverence  and  moral  obedience.  The 
danger  of  all  physical  treatment  of  the  spiritual  life  is 
extemalism  and  formalism. 


PHYSICAL  TREATMENT  OF  SOUL    283 

It  will  simplify  our  discussion  if  we  narrow  it 
down  to  one  particular  item  of  all  ascetic  practice, 
that  of  fasting,  which  has  a  recognised  place  in  all 
systems  as  an  instrument  of  spiritual  culture.  The  sur- 
face temptation  which  it  carries  is  of  course  the  empty 
doing  of  it  as  a  duty  of  religion,  culminating  in  an 
ostentation  like  that  of  the  Pharisees  in  their  acts  of 
fasting.  They  had  reduced  it  to  a  system,  and  had 
made  it  a  distinct  religious  duty,  quite  apart  from  the 
spiritual  results  it  was  supposed  to  accomplish.  Our 
Lord  in  condemning  it  enforced  the  necessity  of  sin- 
cerity and  reality  above  all  things  in  religion,  and 
taught  that  all  forms,  fasting  included,  must  be  judged 
by  the  purity  and  simplicity  of  intention.  He  points  to 
the  danger  and  temptations  of  such  mechanical  exer- 
cises. All  bodily  discipline,  all  kinds  of  abstinence, 
can  have  value  only  as  means,  and  when  this  is  for- 
gotten they  become  a  degradation.  The  idolatry  of 
forms  is  the  constant  temptation  of  the  human  heart, 
and  our  Lord  prescribed  no  forms  as  in  themselves 
sacred.  Men  have  practised  self-denial,  fasting,  and 
all  sorts  of  renunciation,  in  order  to  overcome  their 
besetting  temptations  and  sins;  and  these  very  ab- 
stinences, however  helpful  and  seemingly  necessary, 
may  become  a  subtler  temptation.  For  one  thing, 
when  religion  is  reduced  to  mechanical  rule,  men  soon 
covet  the  appearance,  which  is  cheaply  got;  and  arti- 
ficial adherence  to  the  rule  is  the  inevitable  result. 
This  was  the  condemnation  of  the  Pharisees,  that  they 
made  a  parade  of  their  strict  exercises ;  and  that,  laying 
stress  on  outward  performance  instead  of  humility  of 
heart,  which  fasting  was  meant  to  symbolise  and  to 
encourage,  they  made  it  an  occasion  of  ostentation. 


284  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

Besides,  all  forms  like  fasting  create  temptations,  if 
they  are  raised  to  the  level  of  religious  duty.  This 
was  the  protest  against  the  ascetic  rules  of  monasti- 
cism,  made  by  such  different  men  as  Luther  and  Eras- 
mus. The  point  of  Erasmus'  constant  contention,  in 
many  of  his  Colloqiiies  ^  and  elsewhere,  is  that  it  is 
wrong  to  lay  down  such  forms  as  Christian  duty  which 
a  man  or  woman  neglects  at  peril.  He  often  speaks 
with  indignation  of  the  formalism,  to  which  all  ascetic 
acts  had  arrived  in  his  time,  including  the  monastic 
vow.  It  led  some  who  had  no  call  to  such  a  life  to 
attempt  it,  with  disastrous  moral  results,  and  it  hurt 
many  a  gentle  conscience.  In  the  same  line  also 
Luther  calls  the  founders  of  the  religious  orders 
troublers  of  men's  consciences.  Luther  indeed,  who 
spoke  from  experience  as  Erasmus  did,  strongly  con- 
demned the  solitary  life  as  a  religious  method,  while 
he  admitted  the  measure  of  truth  it  contained.  The 
great  point  insisted  on  by  both  is  that  these  things 
should  not  be  elevated  into  rules  of  religion.  *'  It  is 
a  perilous  thing  for  a  man  to  be  alone,"  writes  Luther. 
"  Wherefore  they  that  ordained  that  cursed  monkish 
and  solitary  life  gave  occasion  to  many  thousands  to 
despair.  If  a  man  should  separate  himself  from  the 
company  of  others  for  a  day  or  two  to  be  occupied 
in  prayer  (as  we  read  of  Christ  that  He  sometimes 
went  aside  alone  into  the  Mount,  and  by  night  contin- 
ued in  prayer),  there  were  no  danger  therein.  But 
when  they  constrained  men  continually  to  live  a  soli- 
tary life  it  was  a  device  of  the  devil  himself;  for  when 
a  man  is  tempted  and  is  alone  he  is  not  able  to  raise 

^E.  g.  Familiar  Colloquies — ["The  Penitent  Virgin  "]. 


PHYSICAL  TREATMENT  OF  SOUL    285 

himself  up,  no  not  in  the  least  temptation  that  can  be  "  ^ 
Ascetic  methods  are  condemned  by  Erasmus  and  Lu- 
ther, because  they  are  imposed  as  sacred  rules  of  duty, 
whereas  th-ey  can  have  no  religious  significance,  except 
as  they  are  the  natural  expression  of  an  inward  motive. 
They  both  also  assert  that  they  produce  new  tempta- 
tions, apart  altogether  from  the  possibility  of  violent 
reaction,  by  which  nature  reasserts  herself,  and  apart 
from  the  spiritual  danger  of  pride  when  a  man  does 
succeed  in  silencing  nature.  The  physical  treatment  of 
the  soul,  which  men  take  up  so  lightly,  must  be  a  deli- 
cate task,  requiring  wisdom,  and  individual  treatment, 
and  cannot  be  comprehended  in  general  rules  to  be 
applied  indiscriminately.  If  we  are  in  the  dark  about 
the  relation  of  mind  to  body,  much  more  are  we  in 
the  dark  as  to  how  any  persistent  bodily  action  will 
affect  each  individual  soul. 

All  who  have  ever  tried,  even  in  a  modified  degree, 
any  of  the  prescribed  methods  of  repressions  in  the 
hope  that  they  offered  an  infallible  instrument  of 
spiritual  culture,  cannot  but  confess  that  it  was  like 
ignorant  blundering  fingers  tampering  with  delicate 
mechanism  whose  working  was  mysterious.  Newman 
admits  that  fasting,  for  example,  does  not  lessen  temp- 
tations but  creates  them.  He  confesses  it  may  make  a 
man  irritable,  and  ill-tempered,  or  may  produce  a 
feebleness  which  deprives  him  of  his  wonted  com- 
mand over  his  bodily  acts,  feelings,  and  expressions. 
"  Thus  it  may  make  him  seem,  for  instance,  to  be  out 
of  temper  when  he  is  not ;  I  mean  because  his  tongue, 
his  lips,  nay,  his  brain,  are  not  in  his  pK>wer.    He  does 

*  On  Galatians,  p.  324. 


286  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

not  use  the  words  he  wishes  to  use,  nor  the  accent  and 
tone.  .  .  .  Again,  weakness  of  body  may  deprive 
him  of  self-command  in  other  ways;  perhaps  he  can- 
not help  smiling  or  laughing,  when  he  ought  to  be 
serious,  which  is  evidently  a  most  distressing  and 
humbling  trial ;  or  when  wrong  thoughts  present  them- 
selves, his  mind  cannot  throw  them  off,  any  more 
than  if  it  were  some  dead  thing  and  not  spirit.  Or 
again,  weakness  of  body  often  hinders  him  from  fixing 
his  mind  on  his  prayers,  instead  of  making  him  pray 
more  fervently;  or  again,  weakness  of  body  is  often 
attended  with  languor  and  listlessness,  and  strongly 
tempts  a  man  to  sloth.  Yet  I  have  not  mentioned 
the  most  distressing  of  the  effects  which  may  follow 
from  even  the  moderate  exercise  of  this  great  Chris- 
tian duty.  It  is  undeniably  a  means  of  temptation, 
and  I  say  so  lest  persons  should  be  surprised  and  de- 
spond when  they  find  it  so."  ^  It  is  an  instance  of  the 
peculiar  twist  in  Newman's  mind  that  he  should  see 
this,  and  yet  not  see  the  implication  of  it.  All  he  has 
said,  besides  the  more  distressing  effects  he  tells  us 
he  has  left  unsaid,  did  not  make  him  question  whether 
it  is  such  a  clear  Christian  duty  as  he  assumes.  If  it 
exposes  men  to  thoughts  from  which  they  turn  with 
abhorrence  and  terror,  as  he  confesses  it  does,  then 
instead  of  subduing  the  flesh,  which  is  claimed  for 
it,  on  the  contrary  it  gives  the  flesh  power.  No  value 
as  a  penitential  exercise  can  make  up  for  such  dangers. 
It  will  always  remain  far  more  of  a  Christian  duty  to 
avoid  being  irritable  and  ill-tempered,  than  to  gain 
some  expected  sanctity  at  the  risk  of  wounding  others 
with  tongue  or  act.     Surely  with  such  supposed  in- 

*  Parochial  and  Plain  Sermons,  vol.  vi.  serm.  i. 


PHYSICAL  TREATMENT  OF  SOUL    287 

struments  of  piety  the  test  must  be  rigorously  applied, 
"  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them." 

In  addition,  it  must  be  remembered  that  men  are 
not  all  made  in  one  cast-iron  mould,  and  that  therefore 
such  abstinences  have  different  effects  on  different 
persons.  It  follows  that  the  same  formal  act  will  be 
various  in  its  results.  To  apply  it  as  a  fixed  rule  of 
duty  is  to  apply  it  blindly,  like  a  doctor  prescribing- 
medicine  by  rule  of  thumb,  in  the  pious  hope  that 
something  may  chance  to  do  good.  It  is  a  principle 
of  the  modern  practice  of  medicine  not  to  treat  the 
disease  so  much  as  the  individual  patient;  and  in  the 
subtler  region  of  the  soul  it  is  far  more  difficult  to 
say  how  any  general  rule  of  conduct  will  affect  it. 
The  physical  treatment  of  the  spiritual  life,  working 
as  it  does  with  narrow  approved  methods,  does  not  take 
into  account  the  differences  in  the  material  on  which 
it  operates.  It  would  be  all  very  well  if  the  aim  were 
to  produce  uniformity  of  discipline,  as  in  the  Jesuit 
order,  where  each  responds  to  superior  will  as  an 
automaton;  but  in  the  varied  many-sided  sphere  of  a 
rich  and  full  Christian  life,  methods  which  are  applied 
mechanically  are  an  offence  and  a  hindrance. 

The  above  criticism  applies  of  course  only  to  fast- 
ing as  a  formal  and  universal  rule,  as  if  it  were  in 
itself  a  Christian  duty.  It  may  well  be  useful  to  some, 
and  there  will  always  be  occasions  when  it  should 
come  natural  to  all.  If  it  helps  a  man  to  real  self- 
government,  it  justifies  itself.  If  it  makes  him  more 
gentle  and  loving  instead  of  irritable,  more  prayerful 
instead  of  less,  if  it  gives  him  more  control  of  his 
whole  nature,  and  if  it  expresses  real  sincere  repent- 
ance and  desire  for  holiness,  it  justifies  itself.    But  if 


288  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

it,  or  any  other  method  of  formal  reHgion,  exposes  a 
man  to  sin,  to  pride,  to  sloth,  then  it  comes  under  the 
same  condemnation  as  the  forms  of  fasting  which  the 
Pharisees  practised.  The  true  view,  and  the  scriptural, 
is  Luther's  sane  judgment,  "  We  do  not  reject  fasting 
and  other  good  exercises  as  damnable  things ;  but  we 
teach  that  by  these  exercises  we  do  not  obtain  remis- 
sion of  sins,"  ^  That  is  to  say,  he  will  not  allow  a 
magical  efficacy  to  a  form,  and  will  not  let  a  method 
of  personal  discipline  be  elevated  into  a  Christian  duty. 
We  must  always  distinguish  between  any  form  and 
the  spiritual  reality  it  is  meant  to  embody.  The  com- 
mon mediaeval  proverb,  Cucullus  non  facit  monachum  ^ 
(the  cowl  does  not  make  the  monk),  shows  that  it  was 
quite  well  understood  by  spiritually-minded  men  that 
the  mere  withdrawal  from  the  world  might  not  mean 
any  real  change  of  heart.  Many  passages  in  the  Imi- 
tatio  Christi,  for  example,  recognise  this,  such  as, 
"  The  wearing  of  the  religious  habit,  and  the  shaving 
of  the  crown,  profit  but  little ;  but  change  of  majuners, 
and  perfect  mortification  of  passions,  make  a  true 
religious  ^  man."  *  Only  as  we  realize  that  there  is  no 
merit  in  any  form  in  itself,  will  we  be  saved  from 
the  many  temptations  of  formalism,,  and  be  able  to 
use  a  form  for  our  own  best  life.  It  might  be  good 
for  some  to  fast  who  do  not,  to  practise  some  con- 
tempt   for   the   material   side  of   life,    which   to-day 

*  Com.  on  Galatians,  ii.  3,  ad.  loc. 

*  Shakespeare   makes  the  clown  translate  the  proverb  as  "  I 
wear  not  motley  in  my  brain." — Twelfth  Night,  i.  5 

'  Note  "  religious "  has  its  usual  reference  to  the  monastic 
life. 
*Bk.  I.  chap.  xvii. 


PHYSICAL  TREATMENT  OF  SOUL    289 

threatens  to  engulf  the  soul.  If  we  condemn  any 
rigid  rules  like  fasting,  it  should  not  be  because  of 
the  greater  laxity  of  our  own  lives,  but  because  we 
have  a  higher  and  more  spiritual  standard,  and  be- 
cause our  ideal  is  that  religion  should  be  the  guiding 
spirit  and  paramount  power  in  every  region,  of  life, 
in  the  civil  and  social  relations  as  well  as  what  are 
called  the  more  distinctively  religious.  It  has  always 
been  common  for  frivolity  and  worldliness  to  condemn 
all  forms  of  seriousness  and  zeal,  just  because  these 
are  a  rebuke  of  selfish  pursuit  of  pleasure  and  of  soft 
complacent  living.  Puritanism  and  every  kindred  seri- 
ousness are  sneered  at,  not  for  thte  things  in  which 
they  contradict  the  spirit  of  the  Christian  faith,  but 
for  the  things  which  in  them  are  essentially  Christian. 
The  easy  worldly  temper  objects  to  the  earnest  and 
zealous  interpretation  of  religious  duty.  Rather,  we 
would  admit  the  profound  truth  and  universal  obli- 
gation of  self-denial,  which  lias  so  often  been  clothed 
in  ungainly  forms,  but  which  makes  its  imperious 
demand  on  us  still  if  we  would  be  true  men ;  only,  all 
forms  of  self-denial  must  be  alive  with  spiritual  mo- 
tive and  not  dead  mechanical  rules ;  and,  if  duty  seems 
to  prescribe  them,  they  must  be  accepted  not  as  them- 
selves parts  of  Christian  duty,  but  as  means  to  the 
great  Christian  ends  of  love  and  holiness  and  service. 

The  physical  treatment  of  the  spiritual  life  by  pre- 
scribed mechanical  rules  really  puts  t!he  cart  before 
the  horse;  for  what  is  wanted  rather  is  the  spiritual 
treatment  of  the  physical  life,  consecrating  every 
power  and  activity  by  a  sacred  motive,  putting  all  life 
on  a  moral  basis.    From  this  point  of  view  our  treat- 


290  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

ment  of  the  body  will  be  regulated  by  the  acknowl- 
edgment that  it  is  an  integral  part  of  human  nature, 
partaking  of  the  fortunes  of  the  life,  sharing  in  its 
failures  and  successes,  and  contributing  to  both.  It  is 
the  instrument  of  the  soul,  carrying  out  its  behests; 
and  at  the  same  time  it  gives  the  points  of  contact 
through  which  the  soul  becomes  rich  or  poor,  noble  or 
base.  The  body  therefore  demands  care  and  discipline, 
the  wise  and  strong  guidance  of  mind,  and  heart,  and 
spirit.  It  is  only  when  the  spiritual  rules  and  directs 
that  there  can  be  permanent  harmony,  and  the  body 
become  the  servant  and  instrument  of  the  higher.  In 
this  case  also  the  treatment  of  the  body  becomes  an 
outward  symbol  of  the  inward  condition. 

Of  all  God's  works  which  do  this  world  adorn, 
There  is  no  one  more  fair  and  excellent 
Than  is  man's  body,  both  for  power  and  form, 
While  it  is  kept  in  sober  government; 
But  none  than  it  more  foul  and  indecent, 
Distemper'd  through  misrule  and  passions  base; 
It  grows  a  monster,   and  incontinent  ^ 
Doth  lose  his  dignity  and  native  grace. ' 

This  solemn  sense  of  duty  to  the  physical  side  of 
life  is  certainly  part  of  the  great  lesson  of  the  close 
connection  of  body  and  mind.  The  true  attitude 
towards  the  body  will  be  one  neither  of  contempt, 
nor  of  weak  pandering  to  its  impulses.  Something 
of  self-reverence  is  implied  in  all  adequate  self-control. 
The  great  difficulty  in  any  wholesale  condemnation 
of  the  physical  treatment  of  the  spiritual  life  is  that 

^  Immediately. 
•Spenser,  F(ierie  Queen,  Bk.  ii.  Canto  9. 


PHYSICAL  TREATMENT  OF  SOUL    291 

we  undoubtedly  need  method  and  the  careful  cultiva- 
tion of  habit.  It  is  easy  enough  to  condemn  the  idola- 
try of  form,  into  which  men  have  been  led,  by  concen- 
trating attention  on  the  mechanics  of  prayer  and  the 
regulation  methods;  but  all  masters  of  the  devo- 
tional life  insist  on  the  necessity  of  creating  the  oppor- 
tunities, and  giving  the  soul  the  suitable  environment 
for  growth  in  grace.  Devotional  culture  is  as  much 
the  result  of  effort  as  mental  culture.  We  recognise 
the  cultured  mind  when  brought  into  contact  with  it. 
It  has  fed  itself  with  the  food  of  thought,  with  wide 
and  accurate  reading,  with  careful  study.  We  feel 
it  has  breadth  and  sweep,  with  nothing  narrow  in  its 
judgmients.  So  we  recognise  the  cultured  soul,  with 
the  aroma  of  devotion  and  a  peace  that  rebukes  the 
fret  and  fever  of  the  day — with  holy  eyes  like  the  eyes 
of  Raphael's  Sistine  Madonna,  with  rebellious  heart 
curbed  and  brought  into  submission.  All  culture  is 
the  fruit  of  discipline;  and  this  highest  culture  comes 
from  the  discipline  of  heart  and  will,  through  giving 
the  soul  the  necessary  occasions.  If  there  is  to  be 
any  depth  of  religious  life  at  all,  there  must  be  a  certain 
separateness,  making  the  opportunities  for  the  holy 
duty  of  "  recollection,"  providing  times  for  prayer  and 
meditation,  which  make  a  man  calm  at  the  heart,  and 
therefore  strong  for  all  the  needs  of  living. 

The  cultivation  of  the  contemplative  life  is  a  valu- 
able feature  in  the  purpose  which  inspired  so  much 
ascetic  practice.  In  the  emphasis  which  it  laid  on 
meditation  there  is  no  keen  opposition  to  the  rival  ideal 
of  culture,  which  also  in  a  different  way  makes  much 
of  a  similar  aloofness,  and  insists  on  the  value  of  soli- 
tude in  producing  a  rich  and  deep  life.    Cowley  says, 


292  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

"  To  be  a  philosopher  is  but  to  retire  from  the  world, 
or  rather  to  retire  from  the  world  as  it  is  man's,  into 
the  world  as  it  is  God's  " ;  and  something  of  that  inner 
retirement  seems  necessary,  at  once  for  the  calm  poise 
of  nature  and  easeful  mastery  of  work  in  the  great 
artist,  as  well  as  for  the  repose  of  soul  in  the  saint.  In 
our  busy  practical  life  the  temptation  is  to  be  engrossed 
in  outside  activities,  with  no  time  for  the  meditation 
by  which  the  soul  gathers  itself  at  the  centre,  and 
withdraws  from  all  distracting  sights  and  sounds. 
Even  in  religious  work  it  is  common  to  find  men 
with  many  admirable  qualities,  active,  zealous,  eager 
in  all  good  causes,  but  with  a  shallow  spiritual  life 
behind,  with  little  sweetness  and  winsomeness  of  char- 
acter, and  little  of  the  devotional  spirit,  and  little  of 
the  attractive  grace,  which  comes  from  shutting  the 
door  to  be  in  secret  with  the  Father,  who  seeth  in 
secret.  There  is  grim  irony  in  Swedenborg's  vision 
of  the  hell  where  everybody  is  completely  busy  in 
making  everybody  else  virtuous. 

At  the  same  time  this  separated  life  is  not  a  matter 
of  mere  formal  times  of  prayer  and  physical  separation 
from  the  world.  It  is  rather  a  cloister  in  the  heart, 
a  spiritual  separateness,  which  brings  a  new  motive 
able  to  cover  all  the  tasks  and  duties  of  life  which  the 
faith  imposes.  Its  essence  is  a  self-surrender  to  the 
will  of  God,  Hfting  the  whole  life  up  to  a  new  level, 
where  the  common  domestic  and  social  relations  and 
the  ordinary  work  of  the  world  are  consecrated.  The 
ultimate  test  of  the  contemplative  life  is  its  effect  on 
the  active  life;  and  the  ultimate  test  of  devotion  is 
devotedness.  We  need  method  and  form  in  religion 
as  in  all  other  spheres  of  life,  but  it  is  one  of  the  great 


PHYSICAL  TREATMENT  OF  SOUL    293 

ethical  revelations  of  our  Lord  that  character  is  formed 
not  by  method,  but  by  the  open  vision  of  Gk>d.  The 
recognition  of  this  alone  will  save  method  from  its 
besetting-  temptations,  which  we  have  been  considering 
in  this  chapter. 


XI 

THE  TEACHING  OF  JESUS  ON  ASCETICISM 

IN  the  gradual  evolution  of  the  mediaeval  concep- 
tion of  a  saint,  and  in  the  growth  of  the  ascetic 
ideal  generally,  it  was  assumed  that  renunciation 
of  the  world  in  the  monastic  sense  was  enjoined 
in  the  Bible,  and  was  distinctly  taught  by  Christ.  The 
Church,  however,  even  when  it  has  held  this  most 
strongly,  has  not  been  quite  consistent.  The  practical 
necessities  of  social  life,  and  the  stubborn  facts  of 
human  nature,  have  compelled  a  modification  of  the 
position.  For  instance,  it  has  always  allowed  and 
sanctictfied  marriage  for  the  majority  of  Christian  peo- 
ple. By  the  perfect  it  might  be  considered  an  inferior 
condition  of  the  religious  life,  but  it  was  held  legiti- 
mate for  the  general  mass  of  believers.  Indeed  it  has 
to  be  remembered  that  it  was  the  Christian  faith  after 
all,  which  ennobled  the  whole  family  relation,  and 
first  put  marriage  on  its  true  and  high  platform.  A 
very  peculiar  illustration  of  the  inconsistency,  induced 
by  the  two  different  streams  of  tendency,  is  aflforded 
by  the  place  which  marriage  ultimately  received.  In 
the  mediaeval  Church  marriage  was  declared  a  sacra- 
ment, and  yet  the  priest  was  deprived  of  this  sacra- 
ment. The  celibate  life  was  supposed  to  be  higher 
than  the  married  life,  and  yet  the  latter  had  the  addi- 
tional sacrament  with  the  extra  grace  which  a  sacra- 
ment implied.    It  may  have  been  because  such  needed 

294 


JESUS  AND  ASCETICISM  295 

grace  more,  but  there  was  an  instinct  in  the  Church 
of  the  true  place  of  marriage,  which  thus  found  satis- 
faction in  spite  of  the  illogical  position.  Though  from 
the  middle  of  the  third  century  onwards  the  ascetic 
tendency  grew  ever  more  strong,  yet  the  Church  did 
not  make  it  a  general  rule,  and  got  out  of  the  dilemma, 
as  we  have  seen,  by  the  theory  of  two  distinct  moral 
codes — one  representing  a  higher  vocation,  the  other 
a  more  relaxed  standard  for  weaker  "brethren.  Thus 
Tertullian,  writing  about  second  marriages,  and  vehe- 
mently denouncing  them,  speaks  of  two  rules;  one 
which  tolerates  what  it  cannot  prevent,  the  other  a  state 
more  in  the  line  of  God's  preference. 

The  seeming  inconsistency  of  having  two  moral 
rules  was  got  over  by  asserting  that  our  Lord  meant 
such  items  of  the  ascetic  creed  as  renouncing  property 
and  abstaining  from  marriage,  not  as  commands,  but 
as  counsels;  so  that  those  who  do  not  practise  these 
abstinences  are  not  to  be  blamed,  and  all  are  not  com- 
pelled to  adopt  them,  because  all  are  not  capable  of 
them.  It  was  a  counsel  of  perfection  set  for  those  able 
to  receive  it.  Monasticism  was  declared  to  be  "  de  jure 
divino,  non  praecipiente  sed  consulente."  This  is  an 
impossible  position,  since  Jesus  in  His  teaching  cer- 
tainly sanctioned  no  division  of  moral  rule,  and  what 
He  called  perfection  was  to  be  pursued  by  all  His  fol- 
lowers without  exception ;  but  it  was  a  compromise 
which  to  some  extent  conserved  the  rights  of  ordinary 
Christians. 

And  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  Christian  life  in  the 
iirst  centuries  did  not  spend  itself  in  barren  asceti- 
cism, but  brought  new  vigour  into  all  the  ordinary 
channels  and  occupations  of  the  world's  work.    Chris- 


296  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

tians  pursued  the  ordinary  avocations,  entered  into 
trade  and  the  secular  professions,  accepted  every  inno- 
cent calHng,  and  only  carried  into  these  a  new  spirit  of 
honesty,  and  diligence,  and  unselfishness.  There  are 
many  indications  that  their  example  of  integrity  in 
their  business  life,  and  of  purity  in  their  home  life,  did 
more  for  the  spread  of  the  faith  than  any  reasoned 
pleadings.  Tertullian,  who  became  almost  fanatically 
ascetic,  makes  a  point  of  this  in  replying  to  the  charge 
that  Christians  were  a  useless  sort  of  people  to  the 
world  at  large.  **  How  can  this  possibly  be,"  he  asks, 
"  since  we  mix  with  you  as  men,  have  the  same  food 
and  clothing,  and  the  same  necessaries  of  life  as  your- 
selves ?  We  are  no  Brahmins,  or  Indian  gymnoso- 
phists,  who  live  in  woods,  or  recluses  in  exile  from 
other  men.  We  know  the  gratitude  we  owe  to  God, 
our  Lord  the  Creator  of  all,  and  we  reject  nothing  He 
has  given  for  man's  use.  We  are  indeed  temperate  in 
our  enjoyment,  lest  we  transgress  by  excess,  or  abuse 
His  favours.  Therefore  we  come  to  your  forum,  your 
baths,  inns,  workshops,  markets,  and  enter  into  all 
other  kinds  of  intercourse.  We  pursue  with  you  navi- 
gation, war,  commerce,  we  share  in  your  arts  and  pub- 
lic works,  and  contribute  to  the  service  of  the  public."  ^ 
It  is  essential  to  remember  this  practical  inconsistency, 
which  kept  excessive  asceticism  a  very  small  feature  of 
the  early  Church,  or  our  picture  of  these  days  will  get 
hopelessly  out  of  perspective.  Still,  with  the  steady 
growth  of  the  tendency,  it  came  to  be  a  prevalent  as- 
sumption that  renunciation  was  indeed  the  very  heart 
of  Christ's  teaching,  and  that  the  highest  life  to  which 
He  calls  men  is  ascetic  in  character. 

*  Tertullian,  Apology,  chap.  xlii. 


JESUS  AND  ASCETICISM  zgy 

This  underlying  conception  of  the  Christian  creed 
is  by  no  means  obsolete,  but  is  tacitly  maintained 
both  by  friends  and  by  foes  of  the  Christian  faith. 
It  was  of  course  so  understood  by  the  whole  mediaeval 
Church,  and  issued  in  the  great  monastic  system,  and 
is  indelibly  imbedded  in  the  Church  Calendar  of  the 
Saints.  The  Roman  Catholic  position  is  still  that 
the  life  of  renunciation  and  withdrawal  from  the 
world  is  the  perfect  religious  life.  All  the  varied  forms 
of  asceticism  found  in  Church  history  owe  their  origin 
to  this  fundamental  conception,  that  they  were  in  sym- 
.pathy  with  the  teaching  of  Jesus.  All  the  mediaeval 
writers  take  for  granted  that,  if  Christ's  will  is  to  be 
perfectly  performed,  m^  must  accept  an  ascetic  creed. 
The  Imitatio  Christi,  one  of  the  sweetest  and  sanest 
of  mediaeval  books,  has  this  as  a  presupposition.  ''  Flee 
from  the  throng  of  the  world  into  the  wilderness  as 
much  as  thou  canst :  for  the  talk  of  worldly  affairs  is  a 
great  hindrance,  although  spoken  with  sincere  inten- 
tion "  ^ — and  of  course  this  advice  is  given  to  men  who 
are  already  monks,  as  if  the  mere  embracing  of  the 
monastic  life  were  not  a  sufficient  withdrawal.  "  Oh 
how  strict  and  self-renouncing  a  life  led  those  holy 
Fathers  in  the  wilderness!  .  .  .  They  renounced 
all  riches,  dignities,  honours,  friends,  and  kinsfolk; 
they  desired  to  have  nothing  which  appertained  to  the 
world;  they  scarcely  took  things  necessary  for  the 
sustenance  of  life;  they  grieved  to  serve  their  bodies 
even  in  necessity."  ^  A  Kempis  quotes  their  example 
of  rigourous  abstinence  to  rebuke  the  lukewarmness  and 
negligence  of  monks  of  his  own  time,  and  to  show 
what  perfect  following  of  Jesus  must  mean.    A  similar 

*Bk.  I.  chap.  X.  *Bk.  i.  chap,  xviii. 


298  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

presupposition  is  seen  in  many  Protestant  quarters, 
though  not  carried  to  the  same  logical  conclusion  as 
by  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  Usually  it  is  stated  as 
a  vague  sentimentalism,  making  much  of  renunciation 
as  the  doctrine  of  the  cross,  without  any  real  sacrifice  in 
it.  We  find  in  modern  devotional  books  and  in  relig- 
ious poetry,  as  well  as  in  all  forms  of  pietism  and  mys- 
ticism, the  underlying  idea  that  in  its  ultimate  issue 
the  Christian  faith  asks  for  renunciation  of  the  world, 
and  that  men  attain  to  perfection  in  the  proportion 
in  which  they  give  up  the  world. 

The  thought  makes  many  religious  men  uneasy, 
and  has  certainly  increased  for  them  the  difficulties 
of  leading  the  Christian  life  in  the  world.  The  notion 
that  complete  following  of  Jesus  means  abstention 
from  the  practical  business  and  the  ordinary  activities 
of  society  has  made  many  a  conscience  of  believers 
morbid  and  strained.  It  tends  to  self-deception  if 
Christians  believe  they  should  not  find  enjoyment 
from  the  common  sources  of  human  joy,  and  should 
as  far  as  possible  be  free  from  the  complications  of 
active  interest  in  the  world  of  affairs,  when  as  a  matter 
of  fact  they  cannot  avoid  the  ordinary  pleasures  of 
life.  Many  who  are  sincere  in  their  endeavour  after 
the  Christian  life,  cannot  reconcile  this  faith  with  the 
inevitable  necessity  of  mixing  with  the  world.  They 
have  an  uncomfortable  assurance  that  they  do  get 
enjoyment  from  recreation  of  body,  and  from  success 
in  business,  and  from  the  pleasures  of  imagination, 
and  from  the  ties  of  affection ;  while  at  the  bottom  of 
their  minds  is  the  thought  that  religion  at  its  highest 
and  purest  demands  the  renunciation  of  these.  They 
cannot  see  their  way  out  of  the  difficulty ;  for  they  do 


JESUS  AND  ASCETICISM  299 

not  feel  themselves  called  to  sever  their  lives  com- 
pletely  from  their  ordinary  environment;  and  yet 
they  have  a  suspicion  that  to  be  a  perfect  Christian 
they  should  make  a  clean  sweep  of  all  participation 
in  the  world's  pleasures.  This  creates  a  furtive  and 
strained  conscience,  so  that  they  are  never  quite  at 
home  in  either  world.  They  accuse  themselves  of 
self-indulgence,  though  they  believe  they  have  a  sin- 
cere interest  in  religion.  They  do  love  God,  and  hon- 
estly desire  to  do  His  will;  but  they  are  tormented 
as  to  what  it  means,  when  they  are  told  that  they  must 
not  love  the  world,  nor  the  things  that  are  in  the 
world.  This  uneasy  conscience  is  to  be  directly  at- 
tributed to  the  perhaps  unexpressed  idea  of  which  we 
speak. 

In  a  previous  chapter  we  have  already  referred  to 
the  common  literary  comparison  of  Christ  with  Apollo 
or  some  other  of  the  Greek  gods;  and  at  the  same 
time  a  comparison  between  the  typical  Christian  life 
and  the  typical  pagan  life;  the  latter  as  simple  and 
natural  and  joyous,  a  sort  of  victorious  possession  of 
the  world;  the  former  as  unearthly,  renouncing  joy, 
and  creeping  out  of  the  great  experiences  of  life. 
Such  comparisons  always  assume  the  ascetic  character 
of  Christ's  life  and  teaching.  Shorthouse,  in  his  very 
popular  book,  John  Inglesant,  draws  this  contrast: 
"  They  were  standing  before  the  Apollo  in  the  Belvi- 
dere  gardens.  Inglesant  took  from  beneath  his  vest 
a  crucifix  in  ivory,  exquisitely  carved,  and  held  it 
beside  the  statue  of  the  god.  The  one  the  noblest 
product  of  buoyant  life,  the  proudest  perfection  of 
harmonious  form,  purified  from  all  the  dross  of  hu- 
manity, the  head  worthy  of  the  god  of  day  and  of 


300  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

the  lyre,  of  healing  and  of  help ;  the  other  worn,  and 
emaciated,  helpless,  dying,  apparently  without  power, 
forgotten  by  the  world."  ^  Elsewhere  he  calls  Christ 
"  the  Divine  Ascetic  who  trod  the  winepress  of  the 
wrath  of  God."  It  must  be  evident  to  all  how  prev- 
alent the  thought  is  that  Christ,  by  His  example 
and  teaching,  inculcated  the  principles  of  asceticism. 
A  modem  advocate  of  a  modified  monasticism  in  the 
Church  of  England  ^  says  boldly,  that  if  any  dis- 
passionate person  could  read  for  the  first  time  our 
Lord's  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  he  would  come  to  no 
other  conclusion  than  that  the  life  of  the  ascetic  is 
distinctly  ordained  by  Christ.  Of  course  early  defend- 
ers of  monasticism  insisted  also  that  it  not  only 
received  the  sanction  of  our  Lord's  teaching,  but  that 
His  own  life  was  framed  according  to  the  well-known 
three  rules  of  the  monastic  orders,  Chastity,  Poverty, 
Obedience. 

The  same  opinion  as  to  the  essence  of  the  Christian 
faith  is  freely  expressed  by  enemies  as  well  as  by 
friends.  What  some  have  thought  the  glory  of  the 
faith,  namely  that  it  produces  men  who  make  complete 
sacrifice  of  all  earthly  joy,  is  made  by  others  an  accu- 
sation in  the  count  against  Christianity.  They  accept 
to  the  full  the  thought  that  Christ's  religion  is  at  bot- 
tom ascetic;  and  then  they  turn  the  acknowledgment 
against  it.  Renan  declares  that  Jesus  boldly  preached 
war  against  nature,  and  total  severance  from  ties  of 
blood,  and  asked  from  His  disciples  a  complete  detach- 
ment from  the  earth,  arid  the  practice  of  absolute  pov- 
erty ;  and  that  His .  requirements  undoubtedly  meant 

*  John  Inglesant,  chap.  xxv. 
■Rev.  F.  C.  Woodhouse,  Monasticism,  p.  6. 


JESUS  AND  ASCETICISM  301 

the  despising  of  the  healthy  limits  of  man's  nature.  He 
speaks  of  the  harsh  and  gloomy  feeling  of  distaste  for 
the  world,  and  of  excessive  self-abnegation,  which 
characterises  Christian  perfection.  He  points  to  the 
danger,  which  threatened  the  future  of  this  exalted 
morality.  "  By  detaching  man  from  earth,  the  ties  of 
life  were  severed.  The  Christian  would  be  praised  for 
being  a  bad  son,  or  a  bad  patriot,  if  it  was  for  Christ 
that  he  resisted  his  father,  or  fought  against  his  coun- 
try. The  ancient  city,  the  parent  republic,  or  the  law 
common  to  all,  were  thus  placed  in  hostility  with  the 
Kingdom  of  God."  The  further  consequence  of  course 
followed  that  the  ideal  of  Jesus  was  impossible,  as 
few  could  even  attempt  to  realise  the  Utopia  He 
pointed  to.  Renan  declares  that  common  sense  revolts 
against  the  conclusion  of  asceticism,  that  perfection 
should  be  placed  outside  the  ordinary  conditions  of 
society ;  but  his  whole  argument  is  to  show,  not  the  folly 
of  the  monastic  ideal,  but  the  failure  of  this  part  of 
Christ's  teaching.^  It  was  natural  for  Renan,  who  was 
trained  to  be  a  monk,  and  who  broke  away  from  the 
position  of  his  youth,  to  think  that  the  monastic  life 
was  the  ideal  Christian  life,  for  this  was  the  presuppo- 
sition of  his  whole  early  education. 

The  same  acceptance  of  the  thought  that  the  Chris- 
tian creed  is  ascetic  has  often  been  made  by  others  to 
show  the  ethical  flaws  in  Christianity,  to  show  that  its 
system  of  morals  *is  impracticable,  and  cannot  be  ad- 
justed to  ordinary  human  Hfe.  The  attempt  is  to 
prove  Christianity  to  be  unnatural ;  for  the  plain  man 
with  ordinary  healthy  instincts  feels  that  a  religion, 
which  demands  the  extirpation  of  natural  impulses, 

*  Vide  argument  of  chap.  xix.  of  Vie  de  Jesus. 


302  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

can  be  no  religion  for  him.  He  feels  sure,  without 
being  able  to  give  reasons,  that  his  capacities  were 
not  given  him  to  be  crushed,  and  the  world  was  not 
created  to  be  renounced.  He  feels  that  the  ordinary 
blessings  of  life  are  good  in  themselves,  and  that  there- 
fore the  religion,  which  has  nothing  to  say  to  them, 
puts  itself  outside  his  practical  interests. 

Similarly,  the  acceptance  of  the  ascetic  ideal  as 
Christian  has  been  made  by  socialists,  who  denounce 
the  unworldliness  of  the  faith,  and  assert  that  it  mili- 
tates against  the  introduction  of  the  new  social  and 
industrial  conditions  which  they  seek  to  promote. 
This  is  a  common  objection  made  by  the  party  of 
reform,  and  by  all  who  are  keenly  interested  in  ma- 
terial and  secular  progress,  though  they  have  no  sym- 
pathy with  theoretic  socialism.  The  objection  states 
that  religion  puts  the  emphasis  on  the  future  Hfe, 
and  in  the  interests  of  the  soul  condemns  worldly 
conditions;  and  so  it  impedes  material  progress,  since 
it  makes  men  willing  to  endure  injustice,  instead  of 
rising  up  in  wrath  to  put  an  end  to  it.  And  while 
this  applies  to  the  general  temper  of  the  Christian  faith, 
it  applies  with  thousandfold  weight  to  the  complete 
ascetic  position,  which  is  assumed  to  be  the  logical  con- 
clusion of  the  faith.  Civilisation,  which  is  taken  to 
be  synonymous  with  temporal  welfare,  is  advanced,  we 
are  told,  not  through  the  passive  virtues  like  resigna- 
tion, which  religion  magnifies,  but  through  compe- 
tition, through  the  desire  for  acquisition,  through  dis- 
content with  the  present,  finding  outlet  in  remedial 
measures.  Religious  faith  robs  the  present  of  its  full 
power  by  looking  forward  to  a  visionary  future.  It 
despises  the  ordinary  life  with  its  pleasures  and  occu- 


JESUS  AND  ASCETICISM  303 

pations,  and  depreciates  the  active  sphere  in  which 
men  must  live,  since  it  makes  spiritual  contemplation 
the  ideal.  It  does  not  love  this  world,  and  therefore 
does  not  make  the  best  of  it.  Take  a  very  typical 
quotation  along  this  line  of  objection  from  W.  R. 
Greg's  The  Creed  of  Christendom:  "  It  is  only  those 
who  feel  a  deep  interest  in,  and  affection  for,  this 
world,  who  will  work  resolutely  for  its  amelioration: 
those  whose  affections  are  transferred  to  heaven  acqui- 
esce easily  in  the  miseries  of  earth,  give  them  up  as 
hopeless,  as  befitting,  as  ordained,  and  console  them- 
selves with  the  idea  of  the  amends,  which  are  one  day 
to  be  theirs.  If  we  had  looked  on  this  earth  as  our  only 
scene,  it  is  doubtful  if  we  should  have  tolerated  its 
more  monstrous  anomalies  and  more  curable  evils. 
But  it  is  easier  to  look  to  a  future  paradise,  than  to 
strive  to  make  one  on  earth ;  and  the  depreciating  and 
hollow  language  of  preachers  has  played  into  the  hands 
both  of  the  insincerity  and  the  indolence  of  man- 
kind." 1 

It  might  be  answered  to  this  particular  charge 
that  it  is  not  so  as  a  matter  of  fact,  that,  though  we 
might  perhaps  expect  those  who  looked  to  the  future, 
and  who  lived  in  the  power  of  an  endless  life,  to  be 
careless  about  temporal  things,  and  think  it  not  worth 
while  even  remedying  glaring  abuses ;  still,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  world's  best  benefactors,  the  men  who  have 
lived,  and  have  been  willing  to  die,  for  the  good 
of  their  fellows,  who  have  spent  themselves  in  toil 
for  every  noble  end,  the  men  who  have  ever  given  the 
impulse  to  all  reform,  have  been  just  the  men  who  have 
believed  in  God,  and  been  inspired  by  Christ's  passion 
*  The  Creed  of  Christendom,  p.  250. 


304  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

for  humanity,  and  have  agonised  for  the  coming  of  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven  on  earth.  It  must  be  confessed, 
however,  that  sometimes  the  charge  has  received 
plausibility  from  the  conduct  of  some,  who  have  in  the 
name  of  religion  washed  their  hands  of  the  temporal 
concerns  of  the  great  mass  of  men ;  and  of  course  in  a 
completely  consistent  asceticism  the  charge  would  be 
absolutely  valid. 

In  substantiating  the  claim  that  the  Bible  taught 
an  ascetic  creed,  the  advocates  of  monasticism  were 
somewhat  hard  put  to  it  to  find  support  from  the 
Bible,  and  were  often  driven  to  interpret  passages  in  a 
fanciful  manner.  The  Old  Testament  on  the  face  of 
it  did  not  give  much  help,  though  it  was  declared 
that  Elijah  and  Elisha  were  monks.  There  is  a 
healthy  naturalism  in  the  Old  Testament,  which  can 
hardly  be  missed  even  by  a  casual  reader.  It  never 
looks  on  man  as  a  soul  degraded  by  being  covered 
with  a  body;  so  the  false  contempt  for  the  body  has 
no  place  in  Jewish  thought.  The  traditional  Jewish 
view  made  marriage  both  a  duty  and  a  privilege;  and 
children  are  called  the  heritage  of  the  Lord>  The 
most  characteristic  feature  of  the  early  religion  of 
Israel  is  a  bright,  joyous  cheerfulness ;  and,  though  the 
tone  grew  deeper  and  more  sombre,  it  never  could  be 
called  ascetic.  It  is  true  that  we  find  such  symptoms 
as  the  Nazarite  vow  to  abstain  from  wine,  and  also 
the  similar  rule  of  the  Rechabites,  but  these  seem  to 
owe  their  origin  to  a  protest  in  favour  of  the  simple  life 
of  older  times ;  and  certainly  they  are  not  representa- 
tive of  the  g^eat  stream  of  the  national  life,  any  more 

*  Psalm  cxxvii.  3. 


JESUS  AND  ASCETICISM  305 

than  the  Essenes  in  the  New  Testament  times  were. 
In  the  second  part  of  the  Decalogue,  which  deals  with 
the  relations  of  man  to  man,  the  fundamental  con- 
ditions of  social  life  are  frankly  accepted.  The  mo- 
rality of  the  Old  Testament  indeed  is  founded  on  the 
basis  of  the  family,  one  of  the  finest  flowers  of  which 
is  the  honour  to  be  shown  to  parents,^  All  through 
the  law  and  the  prophets  it  is  assumed  that  a  true 
relation  to  Jehovah  will  evidence  itself  in  moral  integ- 
rity towards  men,  showing  itself  in  honesty,  and  jus- 
tice, and  truth,  and  scrupulous  regard  for  the  rights 
of  others.  Man  indeed,  by  virtue  of  the  spiritual  prin- 
ciple with  which  he  has  been  endowed,  stands  above 
the  level  of  nature,  clothed  with  a  special  dignity.  The 
earth  is  given  him  to  cultivate  and  make  his  own,  and 
he  is  to  multiply  and  possess  it.^  Family  life  is  looked 
on  as  the  natural  foundation  for  the  moral  and  spir- 
itual wellbeing  of  the  race  made  in  God's  image,  as  is 
implied  in  the  account  of  man's  creation :  ''  So  God 
created  man  in  His  own  image,  in  the  image  of  God 
created  He  him,  male  and  female  created  He  them." 
Apart  then  from  isolated  texts,  which  seem  to  be 
wholly  or  partially  ascetic  in  their  character,  the  above 
is  unmistakably  the  great  general  trend  of  Old  Testa- 
ment religion.  The  repudiation  of  marriage  is  spe- 
cially opposed  to  genuine  Jewish  ideas,  which  find  ex- 
pression not  only  in  the  Bible,  but  in  the  later  Tal- 
mudic  literature,  as  many  references  in  the  Mishna^ 
testify. 

*  Fifth  Commandment.  '  Gen.  i.  28. 

'  For  example,  "  No  one  must  withdraw  from  the  duty  of 
having  children,  unless  he  has  children  already,  according  to 
the  school  of  Shammai  two  sons,  according  to  that  of  Hillel  at 
least  a  son  and  a  daughter." — Jebamoth  vi.  6. 


3o6  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

The  situation  seems  somewhat  altered  when  we  come 
to  the  New  Testament,  and  it  looks  as  if  a  good  case 
could  be  made  out  on  the  other  side.  On  the  first 
blush  it  seems  as  if  Christ  meant  His  religion  to  be  in 
its  essence  an  ascetic  one.  Passages  can  be  collated  to 
appear  as  if  He  demanded  from  His  disciples  the 
extreme  of  renunciation.  If  a  man  is  to  win  the 
Kingdom  of  God,  he  must  be  prepared  to  give  up 
everything  else,  like  the  man  who  sold  all  his  posses- 
sions to  purchase  the  field  in  which  was  the  treasure 
he  had  found.^  The  renunciation  is  stated  in  all  its 
absoluteness  as  a  separation  from  his  very  nearest 
and  dearest.  "  If  any  man  come  to  Me  and  hate 
not  his  father  and  mother,  and  wife  and  children, 
and  brethren  and  sisters,  yea,  and  his  own  life  also, 
he  cannot  be  My  disciple,"  ^  which  certainly  does  look 
like  a  warrant  for  all  the  extravagances  of  anchorites 
who  interpreted  it  by  fleeing  from  the  world  altogether. 
In  the  great  decision  there  are  to  be  no  half  measures, 
no  partial  renunciation,  but  complete  detachment  from 
the  lower  loves :  "  Whosoever  he  be  of  you  that  for- 
saketh  not  all  that  he  hath,  he  cannot  be  My  disciple."  ^ 
The  advice  to  the  rich  young  ruler,  "  If  thou  wilt  be 
perfect,  go  and  sell  that  thou  hast,  and  give  to  the 
poor,  and  thou  shalt  have  treasure  in  heaven,  and 
come  and  follow  Me,"  *  seems  to  prohibit  all  the 
worldly  business  which  produces  wealth ;  since,  if  abso- 
lute poverty  is  a  condition  for  discipleship,  then  it  is 
folly  to  make  wealth  merely  in  order  to  strip  oneself 
of  it  later  on.  That  would  be  a  dangerous  tampering 
with  evil.     And  what  can  look  more  like  the  setting 

*  Matt.  xiii.  44.  '  Luke  xiv.  26. 

'Luke  xiv.  33.  '•Matt.  xix.  21. 


JESUS  AND  ASCETICISM  307 

up  as  an  ideal  the  mutilation  of  all  natural  desires  than 
the  saying,  "  If  thy  right  eye  offend  thee,  pluck  it  out 
and  cast  it  from  thee;  and  if  thy  right  hand  offend 
thee,  cut  it  off  and  cast  it  from  thee :  for  it  is  profitable 
for  thee  that  one  of  thy  members  should  perish,  and 
not  that  thy  whole  body  should  be  cast  into  hell "  ?  ^ 
The  very  heart  of  His  teaching  is  displayed  in  the 
profound  saying,  "  Whosoever  shall  save  his  life  shall 
lose  it;  and  whosoever  will  lose  his  life  for  My  sake 
shall  find  it."  « 

A  hasty  conclusion  from  such  single  passages  would 
be  to  put  them  out  of  relation  to  the  general  teaching, 
and  often  also  out  of  relation  to  the  particular  occa- 
sion which  suggested  each  saying.  Some  of  them 
were  for  an  individual  case,  as  with  the  rich  young 
ruler,  where  the  advice  is  the  special  cure  from  the 
diagnosis  of  his  spiritual  state.  It  was  the  reading  in 
Church  of  this  advice  to  the  young  ruler  which  in- 
duced St.  Anthony,  the  father  of  Christian  monasti- 
cism,  to  begin  his  career  of  strict  asceticism.  The 
words  "  If  thou  wilt  be  perfect,  give  all  to  the  poor," 
stung  him,  and  when  he  left  the  Church  he  gave  away 
all  his  ancestral  possessions  and  distributed  all  his 
money,  with  the  exception  of  a  small  sum,  which  he 
kept  for  his  sister.  The  next  time  he  went  to  Church 
the  word  read  was  "  Take  no  thought  for  the  morrow," 
and  so  he  then  disposed  of  what  he  had  retained  for  his 
sister,  being  ambitious  for  her  also  to  be  perfect.  It 
may  be  noted  in  passing  the  inconsistency  involved  in 
making  this  a  rule;  for  if  the  actual  possession  of 
property  is  an  absolute  hindrance  to  the  spiritual  life, 

'  Matt.  V.  29,  30.  '  Matt.  xvi.  2$, 


3o8  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

then  to  give  it  away  is  to  benefit  oneself  by  only  adding 
a  terrible  temptation  to  somebody  else.  There  is  a  cer- 
tain inevitable  selfishness  in  the  extreme  ascetic  posi- 
tion, similar  to  the  selfishness  in  the  opposite  extreme 
of  self-culture,  both  making  the  highest  end  a  perfec- 
tion for  self.  A  word  which  was  made  much  of  by 
the  early  ascetics  was  "  Take  heed  to  thyself,"  bring- 
ing often  all  the  vices  of  morbid  introspection  and 
self-absorption.  We  constantly  read  of  single  phrases 
and  texts  being  the  instrument  in  driving  men  to 
become  monks,  as  St.  John  the  Calybite,  who  when 
a  mere  boy  read  in  the  Gospels,  "He  that  loveth 
father  and  mother  more  than  Me  is  not  worthy  of 
Me,"  and  immediately  ran  away  from  home,  and 
entered  the  Sleepless  order  of  monks,  so  called  be- 
cause they  took  turn  at  divine  service  day  and  night 
so  that  prayer  and  praise  might  ceaselessly  ascend. 

This  common  practice  of  singling  out  special 
phrases  suggests  a  further  consideration  in  under- 
standing our  Lord's  teaching,  namely,  that  our  in- 
terpretation must  take  into  account  the  form  and 
method  He  constantly  adopted.  There  was  an  im- 
pressive pregnancy  in  His  manner  of  teaching,  which 
seems  to  have  been  chosen  by  a  deliberate  principle, 
which  Wendt  ^  calls  the  principle  of  aiming  at  the 
greatest  clearness  in  the  briefest  compass.  He  de- 
pended sometimes  on  startling  antitheses,  or  sudden 
appeals,  to  gain  entrance  into  men's  minds.  He  often 
put  His  judgments  and  instructions  in  crisp,  pointed 
sentences,  which  made  them  specially  memorable.  He 
selected  cases  of  illustration,  which  brought  out  in 
the  most  vivid  relief  the  deep  religious  truth  He  wished 
*  Wendt,  Teaching  of  Jesus,  vol.  i.  p.  130. 


JESUS  AND  ASCETICISM  309 

to  inculcate.  He  did  not  weaken  the  force  of  the 
principle  by  needless  details,  or  explanations,  or  modi- 
fications, which  would  apply  in  different  circum- 
stances. It  was  not  a  system  of  precepts  to  be  rigidly 
followed  according  to  the  letter,  but  a  system  of  prin- 
ciples by  which  His  disciples  were  thrown  back  upon 
conscience.  He  refused  on  many  occasions  to  give  the 
definite  advice  asked  of  Him.  He  spoke  in  parables, 
that  men  might  be  forced  to  make  their  own  interpreta- 
tion, and  face  up  to  their  own  moral  decisions.  He 
would  not,  for  example,  adjudicate  on  the  claims  of 
wealth  when  a  question  of  inheritance  was  earnestly 
asked.^  If  He  had,  it  might  have  been  true  for  that 
instance  and  not  for  any  other;  so  in  reply  He 
stated  a  principle  about  wealth  which  is  true  for  all 
time.  So,  in  all  these  passages  of  an  ascetic  colour 
which  we  have  quoted,  the  deep  eternal  principle, 
which  Jesus  undoubtedly  meant  to  enforce,  is  the 
imperious  claim  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  over  men,  a 
claim  so  unique  that  a  man  must  allow  nothing  to 
stand  in  the  way,  either  of  his  entrance  into  the 
Kingdom,  or  of  his  duty  towards  it  afterwards.  But 
it  is  evident  from  His  teaching  that  our  Lord  never 
contemplated  that  the  possession  of  worldly  goods, 
or  intercourse  with  earthly  relatives,  or  ordinary  social 
life,  were  in  themselves  irreconcilable  with  the  highest 
life  as  citizens  of  the  Kingdom.  It  is  the  profoundest 
of  religious  truths  that  a  man  must  give  the  complete 
and  loyal  devotion  of  his  heart  to  the  highest  spiritual 
ends  of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  so  that  the  solemn  word 
will  always  remain  true,  "  He  that  loveth  father  or 
mother  more  than  Me  is  not  worthy  of  Me." 

*  Luke  xii.  13. 


310  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

But  to  see  how  foolish  it  is  to  assume  that  such  a 
saying  must  necessarily  mean  the  rupture  of  the  ordi- 
nary parental  ties,  we  need  only  think  of  some  other 
scenes  from  the  life  of  Jesus,  such  as  that  one  where 
He  displayed  the  most  righteous  scorn  at  the  Pharisaic 
quibble  which  made  it  possible  for  a  man  to  neglect  an 
aged  father  or  mother.^  Times  may  come  when  a 
man  has  to  choose  between  obeying  a  higher  law,  and 
displeasing  an  earthly  parent,  as  such  times  came  to  all 
the  early  Christians,  whether  they  had  been  Jews  or 
pagans.  They  had  to  break  off  from  the  past,  and 
had  to  risk  the  domestic  and  social  ruptures,  which 
all  such  adherence  to  new  truths  involves.  This  alone 
is  enough  to  explain  the  tone  of  urgency,  and  almost 
stem  warning,  with  which  Jesus  spoke  of  the  inevitable 
conflict  between  His  faith  and  the  prevailing  tradi- 
tions and  prejudices  and  established  beliefs.  He  knew 
that  He  was  sending  fire  on  the  earth,  and  was  intro- 
ducing what  would  bring  division  and  not  j>eace  in  a 
surface  sense.^  He  knew  that  the  faith  must  produce 
cleavage  even  in  the  closest  relations  of  life,  dividing 
father  from  son  and  mother  from  daughter;  and  in 
such  conditions  it  was  a  true  judgment  which  de- 
clared that  no  one  was  qualified  to  be  a  disciple  of 
His,  who  was  not  prepared  for  the  sacrifices  that 
were  bound  to  come.  A  correct  estimate  then  of 
these  hard  sayings  about  renunciation  must  not  only 
consider  the  eternal  spiritual  principle  which  under- 
lies them,  but  must  also  take  into  account  the  fact 
that  they  were  spoken  with  reference  to  a  period  when 
severe  conflict  between  the  new  and  the  old  was 
inevitable. 

*  Mark  vii.  lo  flF.  *  Luke  xii.  49-53. 


JESUS  AND  ASCETICISM  311 

That  he  did  not  ask  for  the  dissolution  of  the 
ordinary  relations  of  life  as  necessary  for  disciple- 
ship,  is  evident  from  the  view  He  took  of  marriage 
as  absolute,  ennobling,  and  consecrating  it  as  a  divine 
ordinance,  "  What  therefore  God  hath  joined  together 
let  not  man  put  asunder."  ^  The  truth  is,  that  in  coming 
to  a  decision  as  to  our  Lord's  position  regarding  this 
great  problem,  we  must  take  the  whole  tenor  of  His 
teaching,  and  the  spirit  of  His  whole  life,  if  we  would 
not  misunderstand  Him.  When  we  do  this,  we  find 
that  the  ascetic  position  is  a  complete  travesty  of  His 
gospel  and  of  His  own  manner  of  living.  He  showed 
no  stoical  contempt  for  the  necessaries  of  life,  and  did 
not  take  up  an  attitude  of  defiance  of  nature.  He  did 
not  say  with  the  Stoics  that  men  should  make  them- 
selves independent  of  bodily  needs — He  simply  and 
naturally  accepted  the  fact  of  these  needs,  saying  ten- 
derly, even  in  a  counsel  against  over-anxiety,  "  your 
Heavenly  Father  knoweth  that  ye  have  need  of 
them  "  ^  while,  on  the  other  hand.  His  teaching  was 
utterly  opposed  to  anything  like  Epicureanism,  which 
made  these  an  end.  He  did  not  depreciate  the  body. 
His  whole  life  was  full  of  loving  ministrations  to  the 
physical  well-being  of  others,  healing  the  sick,  going 
about  doing  good. 

Apart  from  His  teaching  we  need  also  to  consider 
His  example;  for  Jesus  taught  by  what  He  was,  and 
what  he  did,  as  well  as  by  what  He  said.  He  did 
not  live  as  an  ascetic  Himself.  He  Himself  tells  us 
that  He  was  reproached  that  He  was  unlike  John 
the  Baptist  in  this,  and  was  called  "  a  gluttonous  man 
and  a  wine-bibber,"  ^  because  He  did  not  practise  the 
*  Mark  x.  9.  '  Matt.  vi.  2,2.  *  Matt.  xi.  ig. 


312  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

austerities  which  John  had  made  familiar.  Nothing 
could  be  more  illuminating  on  Christ's  life  in  this  re- 
spect than  that  criticism,  which  He  accepts  as  marking 
Him  off  in  the  popular  mind  from  John.  He  knew 
that  He  was  misunderstood,  and  that  He  laid  Himself 
open  to  grave  objections,  by  refusing  to  lay  stress  on 
the  outward  rules,  which  the  Pharisees  and  the  dis- 
ciples of  the  Baptist  thought  so  important.  To  Him 
the  heart  of  John's  teaching  was  his  call  to  repent- 
ance, his  proclamation  of  the  advent  of  the  Kingdom 
of  Heaven, — the  camel's  hair  raiment  and  the  leathern 
girdle,  and  the  food  of  locusts  and  wild  honey  were 
only  accidentals  though  they  affected  the  popular  im- 
agination so  much.  Both  the  Pharisees,  and  the 
people  generally,  understood  John,  whether  they  were 
influenced  or  not.  They  understood  the  type  of  piety 
for  which  he  was  so  eminent;  but  they  stumbled  at 
the  carelessness  for  such  external  forms  which  Jesus 
displayed.  They  could  not  reconcile  the  high  demands 
of  holiness  which  He  preached,  with  the  sweet  and 
sunny  and  natural  life  He  lived.  The  description  of 
the  current  impression  which  His  life  created,  as  op- 
posed to  the  ascetic  character  of  John's  life,  is  a  fair 
description  of  our  Lord's  whole  career  viewed  from 
the  outside.  The  records  are  full  of  His  social  inter- 
course with  all  sorts  of  people,  rich  and  poor,  saint  and 
sinner.  He  accepted  invitations  to  feasts;  went  to  a 
marriage;  sat  down  to  dinner  with  hospitable  Phari- 
sees; was  a  frequent  visitor  at  the  house  of  Martha 
and  Mary  at  Bethany.  He  had  the  instinctive  human 
longing  for  companionship,  which  made  Him  desire 
to  have  some  of  the  disciples  with  Him  at  the  great 


JESUS  AND  ASCETICISM  313 

crises  of  His  life.  No  one  can  read  the  gospels  with 
an  unprejudiced  eye,  without  feeling  how  preposter- 
ous is  the  ascetic  contention  that  it  is  based  on  the  re- 
quirements of  the  Christian  life.  "  To  an  ordinary 
layman  the  life  of  an  anchorite  might  appear  in  the 
highest  degree  opposed  to  that  of  the  Teacher,  who 
began  His  mission  at  a  marriage  feast."  ^ 

Further,  He  did  not  impose  on  His  disciples  ascetic 
rules.  We  learn,  for  example,  that  the  disciples  did 
not  fast,  which  was  a  recognised  religious  duty  of  the 
time — indeed  they  were  taken  to  task  for  the  neglect 
by  the  disciples  of  John  the  Baptist,  who  show  by 
the  form  of  their  question  their  surprise  that  Jesus 
should  allow  such  laxity.  "  Then  came  the  disciples 
of  John  saying,  Why  do  we  and  the  Pharisees  fast 
oft,  but  Thy  disciples  fast  not  ? "  ^  In  His  reply 
Jesus  defends  His  disciples,  though  without  blaming 
John's  disciples  for  fasting.  "  Jesus  said  unto  them. 
Can  the  children  of  the  bridechamber  mourn  as  long 
as  the  bridegroom  is  with  them?  but  the  day  will 
come  when  the  bridegroom  shall  be  taken  away  from 
them,  and  then  shall  they  fast."  The  principle  of  the 
answer  is  that  men  may  fitly  fast,  when  the  outward 
form  is  in  keeping  with  a  real  and  natural  feeling,  in 
some  sad  season  of  their  life,  or  some  solemn  crisis; 
but  He  would  not  encourage  any  formal,  forced,  or 
unnatural  rite,  out  of  harmony  with  the  simplicity  and 
joy  in  which  His  disciples  lived.  To  create  wilful 
mourning  would  have  been  foolish  and  sinful. 

It  is  remarkable,  considering  the  high  place  as  a 
rule  of  religion  which  fasting  afterwards  took  in  the 

*  Lecky,  Eur  op.  Morals,  11.  p.  iii.  *  Matt.  ix.  14. 


314  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

Church,  that  there  are  only  two  passages  ^  in  the 
gospels  which  indicate  our  Lord's  attitude  towards 
fasting:  the  passage  above  quoted,  in  which  He  ex- 
plains to  John's  disciples  why  His  own  disciples  did 
not  fast ;  and  the  passage  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
where  He  condemns  the  ostentation  with  which  the 
Pharisees  fasted,  *'  When  ye  fast,  be  not,  as  the  hypo- 
crites, of  a  sad  countenance;  for  they  disfigure  their 
faces,  that  they  miay  appear  unto  men  to  fast.  But 
thou,  when  thou  fastest,  anoint  thine  head,  and  wash 
thy  face;  that  thou  appear  not  unto  men  to  fast,  but 
unto  thy  Father  which  is  in  secret."  ^  The  very  refer- 
ences show  how  little  such  things  bulked  in  His  view 
of  religion.  He  did  not  prescribe  forms  of  fasting 
or  set  times,  because  to  Him  such  forms  were  an 
offence,  unless  they  corresponded  with  the  inner  state 
of  mind  and  heart.  Nor  did  He  condemn  fasting  al- 
together as  essentially  wrong,  but  rather  implied  that 
there  would  be  occasions  when  it  would  be  natural. 
He  ever  laid  the  emphasis  on  the  spiritual  condition, 
not  on  any  external  forms  whatever.  A  similar  situ- 
ation to  the  complaint  about  neglect  of  fasting  occur- 
red in  the  matter  of  ritual  ablutions.  The  Pharisees 
complained,  '  Why  walk  not  Thy  disciples  according 
to  the  tradition  of  the  elders,  but  eat  bread  with  un- 
washen  hands? '^     The  answer   is  an  attack  on  the 

*The  reference  in  Matt.  xvii.  21  (Mark  ix.  29),  tcai  vTjdTEia 
("  and  fasting")  is  an  addition  of  later  mss.,  due  to  the  grow- 
insr  ascetic  spirit  in  the  Church.  This  is  the  case  also  with 
the  references  in  Acts  x.  30  and  i  Cor.  vii.  5. 

'  Matt.  vi.  16. 

^  Mark  vii.  5,  and  also  Luke  xi.  37,  where  the  charge  is 
brought  against  Jesus  Himself  by  a  Pharisee  who  was  His 
host   at  dinner. 


JESUS  AND  ASCETICISM  315 

external  forms  of  purification  and  sanctity  in  such 
favour  with  the  Pharisees,  a  condemnation  of  the  ex- 
ternal method  of  attacking  the  problem  of  sin,  which 
indeed  is  the  mistake  of  all  kinds  of  asceticism. 

Jesus  not  only  did  not  impose  ascetic  rules  on 
His  disciples,  but  also  He  did  not  ask  all  men  who 
believed  on  Him  to  forsake  their  ordinary  work  and 
follow  Him,  as  He  asked  the  inner  circle  of  disciples 
to  do.  The  special  calling  of  the  disciples  was  a 
practical  necessity  for  the  doing  of  the  work  He 
designed.  Jesus  asked  others  to  remain  in  their  place 
in  life,  and  bring  their  faith  to  bear  on  all  the  circum- 
stances of  their  lot.  When  the  demoniac  who  had 
been  cured  prayed  that  he  might  be  with  Him,  "  Jesus 
suffered  him  not,  but  saith  unto  him,  Go  home  to 
thy  friends,  and  tell  them  how  great  things  the  Lord 
hath  done  for  thee,  and  hath  had  compassion  on 
thee."  ^  The  disciples  were  called  on  to  make  sacrifices 
for  the  gospel's  sake,  but  neither  in  their  subsequent 
practice,  nor  in  their  teaching  after  the  death  of  Christ, 
do  we  find  anything  to  indicate  that  they  imagined 
that  their  Master  had  intended  an  ascetic  community. 

The  Apostles  did  not  inaugurate  a  system  of  re- 
nunciation of  the  world.  Their  epistles  are  full  of 
counsel  about  the  practical  affairs  and  the  common 
relations  of  daily  life.  The  epistles  assume  the  ordi- 
nary social  conditions,  and  show  the  Christian  faith  in- 
spiring these  with  a  new  spirit.  We  gather  that  the 
Apostles  sometimes  took  their  wives  with  them  on 
their  missionary  journeys ;  for  St.  Paul  claims  the 
right  to  do  so  as  well  as  the  other  Apostles.^  St. 
Paul's  natural  temperament  was  ascetic,  and  he  was 

*  Mark  v.  19.  *  i  Cor.  ix.  5. 


3i6  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

ready  to  practice  self-denial  even  in  things  which  he 
counted  lawful ;  but  he  refused  to  make  such  a  rule  of 
Christian  ethics.  More  than  once  in  his  epistles,  after 
proclaiming  the  Christian  faith  as  a  principle  of  life, 
he  goes  on  to  show  it  fulfilling  itself  in  elevating  and 
ennobling  the  social  and  domestic  duties  and  relations, 
husband  and  wife,  parent  and  child,  master  and  serv- 
ant.^ He  does  not  imagine  these  natural  relations  as 
evil,  but  looks  upon  the  faith  as  transforming  and 
purifying  them,  exhibiting  its  power  on  the  common 
levels  of  life.  We  find  his  fullest  and  highest  thought 
on  the  subject  of  marriage  in  the  great  passage  in  the 
Epistle  to  the  Ephesians,  where  he  compares  it  to  the 
spiritual  union  of  Christ  and  His  Church.^  The  re- 
lation of  marriage  is  glorified  by  the  comparison,  and 
is  declared  to  be  a  vital  unity  of  which  love  is  the 
nexus,  a  state  in  which  neither  party  is  complete  with- 
out the  other.  Even  in  the  later  New  Testament  litera- 
ture there  is  no  suggestion  of  ascetic  rules,  but  rather 
the  protest  against  them  grows  stronger  as  heresies 
came  into  prominence.  Thus  in  the  First  Epistle  to 
Timothy,  forbidding  to  marry,  and  commanding  to 
abstain  from  meats,  are  classed  with  the  "  doctrines  of 
devils."  ^  The  epistle  gives  no  ground  for  the  law 
of  clerical  celibacy,  since  deacons  and  bishops  are  to 
be  husband  of  one  wife,  and  to  rule  their  household 
and  children  well.*  One  of  the  deepest  principles  of 
the  teaching,  and  it  is  in  line  with  the  whole  Biblical 
view,  is  that  the  world  should  be  used,  not  abused,  and 
that  God  has  given  His  children  richly  all  things  to 
enjoy.  "^ 

*Col.  iii.  and  iv.  'Eph.  v.  22-33.      *i  Tim.  iv.  1-3. 

*Ibid.  iii.  2-12.  'Ibid.  vi.  17. 


JESUS  AND  ASCETICISM  317 

Besides  being  opposed  to  our  Lord's  manner  of 
life,  asceticism  is  opposed  to  the  very  spirit  of  His 
gospel,  which  came  as  an  Evangel,  a  message  of  joy 
and  good  tidings.  It  was  the  revelation  of  God  as 
the  Father,  and,  since  men  were  called  to  enter  into 
communion  with  God,  it  was  also  the  revelation  of 
the  infinite  worth  of  the  human  soul.  It  is  this 
spiritual  relation  to  God,  which  is  the  heart  of  Chris- 
tianity. It  is  not  a  religion  of  particular  command- 
ments, and  explicit  statutes,  requiring  certain  things 
to  be  done  and  other  things  to  be  avoided.  It  lifts 
men  out  of  the  region  of  rules  into  the  region  of 
principles.  It  is  spiritual  communion  with  God,  and 
so  is  pure  religion  itself,  the  ultimate  religion,  beyond 
which  the  soul  of  man  cannot  go.  The  fortunes  of 
religion  therefore  are  not  bound  up  in  any  form,  eccle- 
siastical or  practical,  and  Jesus  attached  no  import- 
ance to  any  external  rules  in  themselves.  They  were 
not  so  much-xjpposfid*.  as  transcended  bv  Him,  and 
treated  as  matters  of  indifference.  He  did  not  ask 
His  disciples  to  practise  certain  ascetic  commandments, 
as  if  these  would  infallibly  bring  spiritual  blessings. 
What  He  did  ask  was  singleness  of  heart,  a  tranquil, 
simple  faith  in  God,  which  would  keep  them  calm  in 
all  circumstances,  and  set  them  free  from  the  bondage 
of  the  world. 

The  Christian  faith  does  not  believe  that  the  ordi- 
nary blessings  of  life  are  evil,  or  are  worthless ;  rather 
it  looks  upon  them  as  given  by  the  gracious  love  of 
our  Heavenly  Father,  who  knoweth  that  we  have  need 
of  them.  Men  must  not  lose  their  hearts  to  any  of 
these  earthly  things,  but  because  of  the  larger  love 
which  is  opened  up  to  them.     They  are  to  seek  first 


31 8  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

higher  things,  the  Kingdom  of  God ;  they  are  to  live  in 
humble  sweet  natural  dependence  on  God,  using  the 
good  gifts  of  His  providence  as  not  abusing  them. 
All  things,  earthly  goods,  earthly  relations,  the  earthly 
life  itself,  are  to  be  consecrated  to  the  great  interests 
of  the  Kingdom.  That  the  Christian  life  demands  self- 
denial  Jesus  taught  distinctly.  If  the  will  is  to  be 
sanctified  and  submitted  to  God,  there  must  be  strenu- 
ous self-control  and  sleepless  discipline.  He  demanded 
from  His  disciples  the  willingness  to  renounce  personal 
gratification,  and  if  need  be  for  the  Gospel's  sake  give 
up  everything,  even  life  itself ;  but  that  is  not  a  general 
system  of  renunciation  as  a  religious  method,  such 
as  asceticism  means.  Christian  sacrifice  is  not  a  self- 
inflicted  thing  to  produce  some  spiritual  good,  as  if 
perfection  could  be  achieved  by  any  external  form. 
We  have  seen  that  there  may  be  a  formalism  in  the 
practice  of  ascetic  rules,  more  deadly  to  the  soul  than 
any  other  formalism.  Self-denial  must  always  have  a 
place  in  the  Christian  life,  if  need  be  to  the  cutting  ofif 
a  hand  and  plucking  out  an  eye,  though  at  the  best  that 
is  to  enter  the  Kingdom  maimed;  but  to  look  upon 
mortification  as  in  itself  a  virtue  is  a  perversion  of 
our  Lord's  Gospel.  What  He  asks  for  is  love,  not  the 
painful  austerities  which  minister  to  spiritual  pride. 
He  asks  men  to  accept  God  as  their  Father,  and  live 
humbly  and  sweetly  in  the  light  of  that  fact.  He  asks 
men  to  live  in  the  same  filial  relation  as  He  did,  to 
come  after  Him  in  spirit,  in  spite  of  the  ambitions  and 
desires  that  war  against  the  good,  and  in  spite  of  the 
evil  of  the  world.  To  come  after  Jesus  needs  prayer 
and  care  and  discipline,  as  all  who  have  bent  to  the 
King's  Highway  of  the  Holy  Cross  know;  but  most 


JESUS  AND  ASCETICISM  319 

of  all  it  needs,  and  this  is  the  centre  of  His  message, 
a  heart  at  rest,  a  heart  fixed  on  God  in  simple  trust 
and  humble  love. 

"Nothing  so  completely  reveals  the  consistent  atti- 
tude of  the  New  Testament  toward  this  whole  subject 
as  the  petition  of  the  Intercessory  Prayer,  "  I  pray 
not  that  Thou  shouldest  take  them  out  of  the  world, 
but  that  Thou  shouldest  keep  them  from  the  evil."  * 
In  face  of  full  knowledge  of  the  bitter  hatred  and 
cruel  malice  of  men,  and  of  their  moral  insensibility 
and  passive  opposition  to  spiritual  things ;  and  in  face 
of  full  knowledge  of  the  subtler  danger  to  true  life  in 
the  numberless  seductions  and  alluring  temptations  that 
clamber  at  the  heart,  the  prayer  accepts  the  situation 
as  the  proper  environment  of  Christian  life.  It  was 
first  of  all  for  the  world's  sake.  The  choice  and  train- 
ing of  the  Twelve  meant  only  the  small  beginning  of 
the  Kingdom,  the  first  reddening  of  the  dawn,  the 
faint  flush  along  the  eastern  sky.  To  pray  that  the 
disciples  should  in  any  form  be  taken  out  of  the  world 
would  be  to  give  up  the  work  at  the  start,  to  falsify  the 
past,  and  to  relinquish  the  future.  It  was  also  for  the 
disciples'  own  sake;  for  discipline  is  just  the  process 
ordained  for  disciples,  and  character  is  no  hot-house 
plant.  There  is  a  form  of  piety  which  has  many  at- 
tractions to  the  meditative  contemplative  temper,  with- 
drawing itself  from  the  rough  work-a-day  world,  and 
spending  itself  in  devotions.  There  is  a  sweetness  of 
mind,  and  an  attractive  culture  of  spirit,  to  be  got  in 
retirement ;  but  that  may  not  necessarily  be  a  sign  of  a 
strong  character.  The  ungenial  surroundings,  the 
untoward  lot,  the  very  temptations,  may  be  the  condi- 

*John  xvii.  15. 


320  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

tion  of  a  man's  sanctification.  The  ordinary  relations 
of  life,  with  their  duties  and  responsibilities,  with 
their  trials  and  sorrows  and  joys,  are  the  divinely  ap- 
pointed environment  to  develop  character,  and  to  train 
disciples  into  robust  vigour  of  life.  It  is  easy  to  keep 
the  hands  clean  by  keeping  them  from  work,  and  easy 
to  have  a  kind  of  refinement  of  soul  by  shirking  con- 
tact with  the  coarse  outer  world;  but  the  secret  of  life 
can  never  be  attained  by  moral  cowardice,  and  never 
by  the  selfishness  which  would  disentangle  the  life 
from  the  lives  of  other  men.  Jesus  desired  for  His 
disciples  the  culture  of  character,  which  comes  from 
the  good  fight  of  faith  in  the  world. 


OF  THE     • 

OF 

XII 

THE  CHRISTIAN  SOLUTION 

THE  two  opposing  methods  which  we  have  been 
considering  reflect  the  conflict  in  human  na- 
ture, the  facts  that  seem  to  contradict  each 
other;  and  each  of  the  methods  ignores  the 
other  side,  and  is  bHnd  to  what  does  not  tell  in  favour 
of  its  particular  theory.  Self-culture  is  really  based  on 
a  form  of  optimism,  which  gaily  assumes  that  nothing 
more  is  wanted  but  the  harmonious  and  joyous  develop- 
ment of  all  the  powers  existing  in  man.  It  has  infinite 
faith  in  natural  education  to  draw  out  latent  capacities 
of  power  and  joy,  and  so  to  make  life  sweet  and  sane. 
Self-restraint  as  an  exclusive  method  is  essentially  a 
form  of  pessimism,  which  has  little  faith  in  the  nat- 
ural, and  has  no  confidence  that,  even  if  the  best  means 
of  culture  be  used,  the  result  will  be  of  much  value. 
It  is  so  impressed  with  the  presence  of  evil  in  man 
and  in  the  world,  that  the  harmony  is  always  turned 
into  discord;  and  it  sees  no  hope  for  ultimate  good, 
except  by  heroic  measures  for  the  extirpation  of  the 
evil.  Whatever  be  our  special  sympathy  with  either 
of  these  extremes,  according  to  our  particular  mood 
of  mind,  we  must  accept  the  facts  on  which  both  are 
founded,  if  we  are  to  approach  anything  like  a  full 
and  true  solution.  We  can  accept  what  each  asserts, 
without  being  bound  to  follow  each  in  what  they  deny. 
We  bow  to  the  Hebraic  preaching  of  the  necessity  for 

321 


322  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

moral  discipline,  and  also  to  the  Hellenic  gospel  of  the 
love  of  the  beautiful  and  the  joy  of  living;  but  we 
need  not  assent,  when  Culture  makes  light  of  sin  as  if 
it  did  not  exist  except  in  some  morbid  imaginations, 
or  when  Restraint  rejects  the  fairest  flowers  of  natural 
joy  and  human  genius. 

The  facts  which  give  force  and  weight  to  the 
aesthetic  ideal  are  unimpeachable,  and  every  fresh 
soul  that  enters  the  world  instinctively  expects  its 
share  of  what  seems  its  natural  birthright  of  light 
and  joy.  No  doleful  pronouncement  of  "  vanity  of 
vanities  "  will  convince  the  heart  of  youth  that  the 
world  can  be  only  a  diabolic  instrument  to  ensnare 
the  soul  and  that  the  rich  powers  of  mind  and  imagina- 
tion and  heart  are  only  to  be  discarded.  If  repression 
be  the  secret,  then  its  task  is  unending;  for  it  would 
need  to  be  begun  again  with  every  new  life,  which 
comes  endowed  with  the  same  keen  zest  for  the  mere 
act  of  living,  and  with  the  same  deep  instinct  for  self- 
expression.  The  ascetic  ideal  also  takes  firm  stand  on 
facts,  and  experience  only  increases  their  force,  and 
adds  to  their  number.  No  surface  scheme  of  cul- 
ture, however  garishly  it  paints  the  prospect,  can  for 
long  cover  over  the  ugly  symptoms,  and  hide  the  evil 
taint  in  life.  Nor  can  it  even  secure  the  happiness  it 
promised,  having  no  protection  from  the  blows  of 
misfortune,  and  no  safeguard  against  the  inevitable 
disillusionment.  The  pain  and  sorrow  of  life  are 
facts  to  the  believer  and  the  unbeliever  alike;  and  all 
that  unbelief  can  do,  at  its  best  or  at  its  worst,  is  to 
rob  the  facts  of  their  redemptive  purpose,  and  empty 
them  of  any  intelligible  or  moral  meaning. 

Whether  we  have  any  prospect  of  reconciling  them 


THE  CHRISTIAN  SOLUTION         323 

or  not,  our  first  duty  is  to  admit  the  deep-seated 
antagonisms  of  human  life,  to  accept  the  conflict  in 
man's  nature,  the  combined  glory  and  penury  of  his 
life.  To  be  true  to  all  the  facts,  we  must  see  amid 
the  nobility  and  achievements  traces  of  the  sordid 
and  base;  and  also  see  a  soul  of  good  in  men  and 
things  evil.  This  is  the  Christian  position,  the  simple 
acceptance  of  both  sides,  looking  with  clear  eyes  on 
the  whole  situation.  On  the  one  hand  it  rejects  the 
rose-coloured  optimism,  which  is  wilfully  blind  to  the 
tragic  facts,  and  which  sees  in  history  and  experience 
nothing  but  easy  steps  of  progress  towards  perfection ; 
and  on  the  other  hand  it  rejects  the  bland  denial  of 
pessimism,  which  means  despair  of  good,  and  in  the 
final  issue  means  unfaith  in  the  divine  element  of  the 
world  and  human  life.  It  sees  sin  in  man,  but  its  last 
word  is  not  sin  but  redemption.  The  world  is  full  of 
menace  to  good,  a  place  of  trial  and  discipline,  but  it  is 
God's  world,  with  beauty,  and  truth,  and  joy.  To  see 
how  completely  the  antagonisms  of  life  are  accepted, 
we  need  only  think  how  the  heart  of  the  Christian 
faith  can  be  expressed  by  the  word  Reconciliation.  Its 
very  purpose  was  to  reconcile,  and  bring  together,  all 
that  stood  in  unnatural  opposition  through  sin.  Its 
work  is  to  reconcile  man  to  God,  and  man  to  man,  and 
all  the  diverse  unrelated  parts  of  man's  nature  with 
each  other  in  a  centre  of  unity.  All  the  discord  is 
changed  to  harmony  by  reconciling  man  to  God;  for 
with  that  all  other  reconcilements  come.  The  deepest 
thought  of  Christ's  teaching  and  life  is  simple  confi- 
dence in  God,  as  seen  both  in  the  world  and  in  human 
life,  recognising  Him  in  nature  and  in  man.  This 
consciousness  of  the  divine  takes  precedence  of  all 


324  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

else,  and  becomes  the  great  inspiring  motive,  driving 
the  Hfe  to  noble  ends,  and  at  the  same  time  putting 
everything  into  its  rightful  place  in  the  large  scheme. 
A  faith  like  this  rises  above  any  seeming  contradic- 
tion between  elements,  such  as  the  contradiction  be- 
tween reason  and  faith,  or  between  culture  and  re- 
straint as  opposing  ideals.  It  solves  the  problem,  not 
by  denying  one  side,  but  by  carrying  both  sides  up  to  a 
higher  point,  where  the  practical  contradictions  are 
merged  in  a  principle  of  life.  There  can  be  no  true 
victory,  except  by  a  real  reconcilement,  by  showing 
the  place  of  both  in  the  plan  of  life — never  by  a  policy 
of  extermination  on  either  side,  either  by  culture  affect- 
ing to  ignore  the  moral  appeal  of  sacrifice,  or  by  re- 
straint ruthlessly  trampling  on  the  legitimate  claims  of 
the  other.  It  must  be  by  a  reach  forward  and  upward 
to  a  larger  ideal. 

/Historically  this  was  so;  for  Christianity  reconciled 
Hebraism  and  Hellenism  by  a  form  of  knowledge  and 
of  ethics  that  was  made  accessible  to  all  classes  and 
races,  leaving  the  old  battlefield  behind.  The  struggle 
in  Palestine,  which  was  referred  to  in  our  first  chap- 
ter, between  the  sons  of  Zion  and  the  sons  of  Greece, 
seemed  doomed  to  end  in  the  complete  triumph  of 
Hellenism,  which  could  only  have  been  a  barren  vic- 
tory. When  the  champions  of  Jewish  religion  were  the 
Pharisees,  with  their  hide-bound  formalism  and  eccle- 
siastical pedantry,  no  other  result,  however,  was  to  be 
expected;  for  all  that  they  could  hope  to  do  was  to 
preserve  a  little  section  of  the  world  in  some  shady 
corner  outside  of  the  great  stream  of  civilisation.  It 
seemed  a  lost  battle  for  Israel,  till  the  hopes  of  the 
true  Israel  revived  in  Christ.    His  religion  conquered 


THE  CHRISTIAN  SOLUTION  325 

the  world,  indeed  saved  it  from  despair  and  death,  and 
gave  it  new  youth  and  new  Hfe.  The  gospel  of  culture, 
which  was  all  that  Greece  had  to  offer,  could  only  at 
the  best  gild  the  outside  of  life,  could  only  direct  taste, 
and  adorn  the  cup  and  platter:  it  could  not  redeem 
the  world  from  sin,  and  chain  the  beast  in  man,  and 
deliver  both  Greeks  and  barbarians  from  a  reprobate 
mind.  Hellenism  had  to  go  down  before  the  higher 
ideal  of  Zion,  but  it  was  not  the  form  it  took  from  the 
hands  of  the  Pharisees  that  accomplished  the  victory; 
but  from  One  who  was  neither  son  of  Zion  nor  son  of 
Greece,  but  both — because  Son  of  Man.  It  was  no 
narrow,  sectional,  parochial  Zionism  which  overthrew 
the  might  of  Rome  and  the  grace  of  Greece.  It  was 
the  gospel  of  the  eternal  love  of  God,  wide  as  the 
needs  of  man,  for  Jew,  and  Greek,  barbarian,  Scythian, 
bond,  and  free. 

It  begins  in  the  deeps  of  human  nature,  dealing 
with  the  heart  of  hearts,  cleansing  from  sin,  recon- 
ciling man  to  God,  and  then  setting  him  to  live  the 
reconciled  life.  It  is  not  a  scheme  of  culture,  nor  a 
system  of  philosophy;  but  religion,  founding  itself  on 
moral  sanctions,  fulfilling  the  law  and  the  prophets, 
enforcing  the  obligations  of  duty,  bending  the  neck 
to  a  yoke,  even  pointing  to  the  glory  of  a  cross;  all 
because  it  brought  man  into  a  new  relation  to  God, 
which  made  any  moral  demands  easy  and  any  com- 
mandments light.  And  its  end  is  not  the  curtail- 
ment of  life  but  its  enlargement,  so  that  there  is 
room  for  the  development  of  every  gift  of  brain,  and 
heart,  and  soul;  for  it  takes  the  whole  man,  afford- 
ing each  gift  a  higher  platform  from  which  to  work, 
elevating  and  inspiring  them  with  a  new  and  larger 


326  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

ideal.  At  its  historic  introduction  we  see  it  enriching 
Hfe  to  men,  bringing  the  broadening  of  opportunities, 
and  the  expansion  of  powers.  It  Hfted  forward  the 
hfe  of  man  with  a  great  impulse,  giving  even  to  the 
most  degraded  undreamt  of  possibilities,  making  a 
slave  a  free  spiritual  being,  leading  him  out  in  spite 
of  his  serfdom  into  a  large  place.  It  ennobled  life 
to  souls  in  the  narrowest  surroundings.  It  changed 
the  face  of  the  world,  revived  the  outworn  pagan  hfe, 
making  all  things  new. 

It  is  so  still  even  in  our  Christian  age.  The  narrow 
lot  of  man  is  broadened  whenever  he  comes  into  the 
filial  relation  to  God,  and  there  is  always  in  it  the 
pyotency  of  continual  expansion.  It  introduces  a  new 
motive  power  which  changes  the  current  of  life,  and 
offers  a  new  outlook  which  changes  the  standpoint 
of  life.  This  enlargement  of  life  through  faith  is  a 
fact  of  experience,  which  all  who  have  bent  to  the 
strait  gate  know.  First  of  all  it  comes  as  an  enlarge- 
ment in  the  life  of  thought.  Reconciliation  with  God 
should  mean  sympathy  with,  and  therefore  insight  into, 
all  His  works.  Just  as  monotheism,  the  revelation  of 
the  One  God,  meant  for  the  world  an  almost  infinite 
intellectual  advance  beyond  the  conceptions  of  lords 
many  and  gods  many  of  Paganism,  so  the  further 
revelation  of  the  character  and  nature  of  God  means 
an  almost  infinite  intellectual  advance  to  the  mind  that 
will  fearlessly  and  consistently  accept  it,  as  Kepler 
said  of  his  astronomical  studies,  "  I  think  the  thoughts 
of  God  after  Him."  Faith  enlarges  the  horizon  of  Hfe, 
leads  out  of  narrow  contracted  views  of  the  universe 
to  the  acceptance  of  all  truth.  All  the  treasures  of 
wisdom  and  knowledge  are  open  to  the  believing  mind ; 


THE  CHRISTIAN  SOLUTION  327 

for  they  are  all  broken  lights  of  God  in  whose  light 
alone  we  see  light.  "  The  invisible  things  of  Him, 
since  the  creation  of  the  world,  are  clearly  seen,  being 
perceived  through  the  things  that  are  made."  ^ 

But  the  horizon  of  life  is  broadened  chiefly  by  means 
of  the  enlargement  of  heart.  It  is  not  merely  the 
gain  in  a  truer  and  higher  standpoint,  and  is  more 
than  an  intellectual  conception  unifying  the  whole 
universe  by  the  thought  of  the  One  God,  the  eternal 
immutable  will  which  combines  all  phenomena,  and 
all  laws,  and  all  groups  of  laws.  The  enlargement 
of  life  to  the  individual  comes  rather  as  an  emotional 
force  than  an  intellectual.  The  consciousness  of  God 
changes  the  world  to  a  man.  We  lie  at  the  outer 
porches  of  the  pool  of  life,  a  great  multitude  of  impo- 
tent folk,  blind,  halt,  withered,  waiting  for  the  mov- 
ing of  the  waters ;  and  to  know  the  love  of  God  is  like 
the  entrance  of  the  Good  Physician  with  His  word  of 
power,  "  Rise  and  walk."  The  Christian  faith  touches 
the  heart  with  love,  and  so  gives  the  life  a  new  buoy- 
ancy. The  world  ceases  to  be  the  scene  of  petty  deeds 
and  trivial  events,  and  becomes  a  wide  theatre  of 
action,  in  which  man  plays  his  part  before  high  heaven. 
Everything  takes  meaning  and  purpose  from  the  great 
motive :  duty  is  ennobled  by  the  new  spirit  in  which  it 
is  faced.  The  things  done  may  be  the  same  small 
ordinary  details  of  living,  but  they  are  glorified  by 
being  done  for  love.  That  is  why  throughout  the  ages 
it  has  ever  been  possible,  nay  easy,  for  men,  if  need  be, 
to  suffer  for  the  sake  of  Jesus.  In  the  midst  of  out- 
ward loss,  with  the  cutting  off  of  earthly  joys,  with  the 
shutting  up  of  worldly  prospects,  with  the  narrowing 

Romans  i.  20. 


328  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

of  life  all  round,  there  has  ever  been  to  His  followers 
an  enlargement  of  life,  a  deepening  and  broadening  of 
the  true  sources  of  life,  and  even  a  joyous  exultant 
sense  of  victory  through  Him  that  loved  them. 

And  the  enlargement  of  life  which  thus  comes  is 
not  a  temporary  thing,  like  the  high- water  mark  made 
by  a  river  in  a  time  of  flood.  It  remains  a  permanent 
possession  to  the  soul.  It  is  not  a  mere  emotion,  which 
uplifts  the  heart  in  a  spasm  of  feeling,  and  then  de- 
flates it  when  the  feeling  passes.  It  registers  itself  on 
the  whole  life ;  for  it  carries  with  it  a  moral  and  spirit- 
ual enlargement,  as  well  as  an  intellectual  and  emo- 
tional. It  means  an  increasing  power  to  be  and  to  do, 
a  true  expansion  of  life  as  well  as  of  the  mind  and 
heart.  The  Christian  faith  is  ever  a  state  of  becom- 
ing; the  goal  is  the  perfectness  of  God,  and  every 
advance  in  the  scale  of  being  is  a  stage  towards  that 
high  end.  Christ  gives  a  man  power  to  become,  open- 
ing up  new  possibilities  of  thought  and  feeling  and 
action.  The  psychology  of  it  is  just  the  introduction 
of  a  new  motive  of  love  in  the  heart,  which  carries 
the  life  forward  with  a  rich  sense  of  freedom.  We 
have  already  seen  in  our  consideration  of  the  failure 
of  the  ascetic  method  of  dealing  with  sin,  that  the 
Christian  attitude  is  life  in  the  spirit,  not  futile  battling 
against  physical  conditions.  If  a  man  lets  love  reign 
in  the  heart  it  will  give  power  in  the  life,  lifting  it 
to  higher  levels  of  moral  dignity,  with  victory  over 
sin,  and  mastery  of  weakness,  and  a  simple  strong  ful- 
filment of  duty  even  when  there  seems  little  pleasure 
in  it;  for  instead  of  pleasure  there  comes  joy,  filling 
the  channel  with  a  full  flow  "  brimming  and  bright  and 
large." 


THE  CHRISTIAN  SOLUTION  329 

In  all  Christ's  teaching  on  self-denial  it  must  never 
be  forgotten  that  it  always  meant  to  Him  some  larger 
good.  Self-repression  was  always  a  stage  to  a  truer 
self-expression;  any  giving  up  of  self  would  result 
in  the  true  finding  of  self.  Thus,  some  common  state- 
ments of  the  method  of  Christ  are  so  onesided  as  to 
make  them  caricatures  of  His  method ;  for  they  leave 
out  of  account  the  great  positive  end.  The  end  is  not  ^_ 
a  broken,  wounded  life,  but  fulness  of  life,  true  life  for 
the  first  time,  so  large  and  full  that  it  can  be  called 
even  here  eternal  life.  It  is  not  the  process  which  is 
to  be  judged,  but  the  object  achieved.  To  say  that 
religion  means  shrinkage  and  the  attenuation  of  life, 
is  to  consider  a  few  peddling  details,  and  to  be  blind 
to  the  result.  The  result  is  not  ebb,  but  flow.  The 
work  of  religion  must  be  judged  like  all  work,  by  the 
product  not  by  the  process;  and  this  at  least  is  true, 
whether  it  be  in  accordance  with  the  actual  facts  or 
no,  that  Jesus  set  forth  as  the  fruit  of  His  faith  not  the 
decrease  of  powers  but  their  development,  not  atrophy 
but  growth,  and  that  He  aimed  not  at  the  contraction 
of  life  but  its  extension.  We  are  easily  deceived  about 
this,  because  we  look  so  much  on  the  externals.  We 
see  religion  making  a  man  give  up  this  and  that,  cur- 
tailing here  and  there,  sometimes  we  see  even  what 
looks  like  cutting  oflF  a  right  hand  and  plucking 
out  a  right  eye;  and  we  are  inclined  to  think 
that  rehgion  means  the  weakening  and  impoverish- 
ing of  life.  But  faith  can  dispense  with  much  of  the 
outward,  just  because  it  enriches  the  inward.  Even 
when  it  seems  to  mean  restraint  on  the  surface,  it 
deepens  the  real  life,  and  brings  the  joy  of  expansion. 
When  it  appears  as  the  absolute  loss  of  life  as  men 


330  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

count  loss,  its  express  purpose  is  the  gaining  of  life.  To 
be  open  on  the  side  of  God,  responsive  to  spiritual  in- 
fluences, is  to  have  unclosed  a  larger  and  ever  larger 
world  of  thought,  and  feeling,  and  aspiration. 

"  What  was  a  speck  expands  into  a  star." 

Restraint,  in  Christ's  thought,  is  always  a  stage  to 
a  truer  culture,  a  completer  saving  of  the  life.  He 
asks  for  obedience,  and  when  we  obey  we  discover 
that  in  obeying  Him  we  are  obeying  the  law  of  our 
own  life:  He  asks  for  service,  and  when  we  serve 
we  learn  that  His  service  is  perfect  freedom :  He  asks 
us  to  lose  our  life,  and  lo,  in  losing  it  we  find  it. 

Part  of  the  message  in  the  great  Christian  thought 
of  dying  to  live  is  that  a  man  through  the  death  of 
his  narrow  selfish  life  enters  into  the  larger  life  of 
love  and  service  of  others.  This  is  one  of  the  deep 
reconciling  ideas,  which  combine  the  antithesis  between 
culture  and  restraint,  and  explain  many  of  our  difficul- 
ties. We  have  seen  how  the  ideal  of  self-culture 
failed  often,  because  it  led  to  selfishness  and  a  dis- 
regard of  social  duty.  If  self-realisation  be  pursued 
for  its  own  sake,  we  cannot  wonder  that  we  should 
often  find  as  the  result,  a  narrow  exclusiveness,  and 
sometimes  an  inhuman  egotism.  We  have  to  admit 
the  force  of  the  same  criticism  passed  on  the  ascetic 
ideal  when  looked  on  as  an  end.  One  of  the  causes 
of  its  failure  is  due  to  ignoring  the  duty  of  service, 
which  is  really  a  distinctively  Christian  method  of 
dying  to  self.  This  social  side  of  life  represents  a 
task  of  religion,  just  as  surely  as  the  duty  of  personal 


THE  CHRISTIAN  SOLUTION  331 

sanctity.  Indeed  in  their  deepest  roots  they  are  both 
connected,  so  that  the  one  is  impossible  without  the 
other.  To  dream  of  keeping  self  unspotted,  after 
having  wilfully  cut  off  relations  with  other  men, 
shows  a  lamentable  mistake  as  to  what  true  holiness 
really  is. 

Men  do  not  exist  as  single  entities,  each  separate 
in  the  inviolable  sanctity  of  personality;  they  exist 
in  society,  dependent  on  each  other,  bound  together 
for  weal  or  woe.  Civilisation  is  a  social  thing,  and 
is  only  possible  tlirough  society.  Any  return  to  na- 
ture, either  in  the  name  of  religion  or  in  the  name  of 
philosophy,  as  French  writers  before  the  Revolution 
preached,  means  putting  the  clock  back  to  the  begin- 
ning again.  To  break  down  human  society  to  its 
original  atoms  would  lead  to  anarchy;  and  the  whole 
toilsome  journey  would  need  to  be  made  over  again. 
Man  has  grown  to  his  present  intellectual  and  moral 
stature  through  the  social  relations;  so  that  to  re- 
nounce them  would  not  only  make  an  end  of  further 
progress,  but  would  also  lose  for  us  all  past  gains. 
Voltaire  said  wittily  about  Rousseau's  doctrine  that  he 
preached  the  return  to  nature  so  eloquently  that  he 
almost  persuaded  men  to  go  on  all  fours.  The  witty 
remark  cuts  deeper  even  than  Voltaire  meant;  for  any 
return  to  nature  in  the  sense  of  cutting  the  cord  of 
society  would  indeed  be  a  descent  to  the  animal  state. 
Any  voluntary  withdrawal  from  the  social  bond  is, 
at  once  a  wrong  to  a  man's  own  best  life,  and  is  a 
social  offence.  It  does  not  surprise  us  to  find  in  read- 
ing the  Lives  of  the  Saints  that  many  of  the  most 
devoted  of  anchorites  lost  the  highest  attributes  of 
manhood,  as  we  see  even  from  books  that  are  carefully 


312  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

edited  to  show  people  the  sanctity  attained  by  them.  It 
does  not  surprise  us  also  to  find  that  monasticism 
easily  beat  out  of  the  ground  all  forms  of  anchorite 
life,  though  monasticism  after  all  was  a  compromise, 
and  the  other  was  the  only  true  logical  position.  Still 
monasticism  was  able  to  endure,  while  the  other 
dwindled,  simply  because  it  included  to  some  extent 
the  task  of  service  to  the  world,  in  addition  to  the 
task  of  personal  holiness. 

Withdrawal  from  the  world  in  any  form,  whether 
for  the  exclusive  culture  of  self  or  for  ascetic  disci- 
pline, runs  counter  to  the  instincts  implanted  in  us, 
that  we  need  society,  that  only  through  contact  with 
our  fellows  can  we  reach  our  best  life.  To  be  cut  off 
from  sympathy  with  ordiriary  life,  from  common  fel- 
low-feeling, is  a  loss  which  nothing  can  compensate, 
not  the  finest  culture  of  mind,  and  not  even  beatific 
vision.  Men  have  tried  all  sorts  of  modified  ways  of 
reducing  the  social  contact,  and  thus  escaping  defile- 
ment. Take,  for  example,  the  gift  of  speech.  We 
know  well  the  necessity  for  restraint  here;  for  we 
know  the  evil  of  a  wayward  tongue,  and  we  know  that 
speech  represents  temptation  like  every  other  gift. 
Men  have  been  so  conscious  of  the  countless  ways  in 
which  language  may  be  abused  that  they  have  some- 
times thought  the  way  out  of  the  difficulty  was  to 
give  up  speech  altogether.  St.  Bruno,  the  founder 
of  the  great  Chartreuse  Monastery,  made  silence  one  of 
the  rules  of  the  order.  According  to  this  rule  the 
tongue  was  only  to  be  used  in  the  service  of  God,  not 
in  ordinary  conversation  with  men,  the  purpose  being 
to  avoid  much  of  the  sin  of  the  world.  How  false 
the  conception  which  underHes  this  is  we  can  see,  even 


THE  CHRISTIAN  SOLUTION  333 

if  it  were  a  successful  method  of  reaching  holiness, 
which  it  is  not.  Speech  is  the  medium  of  all  knowl- 
edge, all  social  education,  all  civilisation,  all  that  lifts 
man  above  the  beasts.  The  inherent  falseness  of 
asceticism  is  seen  here,  as  if  Grod  could  be  glorified  by 
wilful  refusal  to  use  a  gift  with  which  he  has  endowed 
man.  It  implies  a  breakdown  of  the  very  principles 
of  human  society ;  and  even  if  such  methods  were  suc- 
cessful in  keeping  a  man  unspotted  from  the  world, 
it  would  be  by  sacrificing  the  whole  for  the  good  of  a 
part.  It  would  be  the  selfish  seeking  of  personal  good 
by  throwing  overboard  humanity. 

To  recommend  self-sacrifice  on  selfish  grounds  is 
to  take  away  any  moral  value  an  act  of  virtue  has, 
and  would  be  at  the  best  prudential  morality.  Sacrifice 
is  ennobled  by  love,  and  is  degraded  when  love  is 
absent.  Self-denial  when  reduced  to  a  system  may 
become  a  subtle  form  of  self-assertion,  as  truly  as 
self-culture  can  be.  A  life  may  be  full  of  asceticism 
without  any  true  sacrifice  in  it;  for  if  love  be  absent 
from  sacrifice,  though  a  man  give  his  body  to  be 
burned  it  profiteth  him  nothing.  A  religious  method, 
which  is  anti-social  in  its  tendency,  leads  to  a  reductio 
ad  absurdum;  for  no  method  can  be  truly  religiously 
successful,  which  lands  its  followers  in  a  selfish  way 
of  living.  It  shuts  the  eyes  to  social  duty,  and  cer- 
tainly gives  ground  for  the  sneer  that  religion  is  only 
another  form  of  selfishness.  If  love  be  the  bond  of 
perfectness,  that  implies  social  privilege  and  social 
duty;  for  only  through  others  can  love  be  truly  de- 
veloped. It  cannot  live  in  a  vacuum,  without  objects 
on  whom  affection  and  service  are  expended.  The 
higher  parts  of  our  nature  remain  starved  and  stunted, 


334  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

if  we  refuse  the  social  burdens  and  ties,  whether  for  a 
self-absorbing  scheme  of  culture  or  for  a  method  of 
purity.  ''  Entangle  not  thy  heart  with  any  creature,"  ^ 
says  A  Kempis,  but  it  is  part  of  the  divine  education 
of  life  that  we  should  be  so  entangled.  The  sweetest 
and  noblest  qualities  of  human  nature,  sympathy, 
charity,  patience,  friendship,  love,  are  alone  developed 
through  the  ties  that  bind  us  to  our  fellows,  in  the 
family,  the  Church,  the  state. 

This  spiritual  culture  in  the  higher  graces  is  at- 
tained, it  is  true,  often  through  self-denial,  but  it  is 
self-denial  in  the  midst  of  the  relationships  of  daily 
Hfe;  not  by  inventing  artificial  discipline,  but  by  ac- 
cepting the  ordinary  occasions  of  life  with  their  duties 
and  responsibilities.  This  may  seem  a  slow  method, 
rather  than  the  flashy  one  of  cutting  the  knot  alto- 
gether, but  it  is  the  only  sure  method,  the  only  way  a 
true  and  strong  character  can  be  built  up.  Emerson 
says  with  insight,  "  There  is  a  great  deal  of  self-denial 
and  manliness  in  poor  and  middle-class  houses,  in  town 
and  country,  that  has  not  got  into  literature,  and  never 
will,  but  that  keeps  the  earth  sweet;  that  saves  on 
superfluities  and  spends  on  essentials;  that  goes  rusty 
and  educates  the  boy;  that  sells  the  horse  but  builds 
the  school;  works  early  and  late,  takes  two  looms  at 
the  factory,  three  looms,  six  looms,  but  pays  off  the 
mortgage  on  the  paternal  farm,  and  then  goes  back 
cheerfully  to  work  again."  ^  If  our  hearts  and  lives 
were  not  entangled  with  others,  we  could  never  rise 
to  the  heights  of  our  nature.  It  is  true  that  our  social 
environment  implies  temptation  and  danger,  but  that 

^  Imitatio  Christi,  Bk.  ii.  chap.  viii. 
Conduct  of  Life,  chap.  iv. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  SOLUTION         335 

is  inseparable  from  moral  life,  and  only  thus  is  the 
education  of  the  heart  made  possible. 

Even  from  the  point  of  view  of  personal  happiness, 
this  is  reached  not  by  selfishness,  but  by  the  develop- 
ment of  sympathy  and  love.  Disinterested  work  for 
others,  the  cultivation  of  the  unselfish  side  of  life,  will 
enlarge  a  man's  horizon,  and  lift  him  out  of  personal 
cares,  and  save  him  from  the  pain  of  morbid  intro- 
spection. This  culture  of  heart,  which  is  after  all  cul- 
ture of  character,  is  of  more  importance  than  intellec- 
tual development.  It  is  also  an  ideal  for  all  in  a 
fuller  way  than  culture  of  intellect  can  ever  be.  To 
comparatively  few  come  opportunities  for  complete  in- 
tellectual training,  but  all  can  practise  unselfishness, 
the  quiet  fulfilment  of  duty,  generous  thought,  and 
gentle  deed.  The  instincts  of  pity,  and  help,  and 
charitable  emotion,  find  their  scope  in  the  common 
relationships  and  the  social  duties  of  life.  The  oppor- 
tunities for  true  self-denial  come  in  the  ordinary  con- 
duct of  life;  and  true  sacrifice  is  all  in  the  line  of 
duty.  It  comes  to  a  man  when  he  must  adhere  to 
truth,  when  he  must  choose  the  higher  and  give  up 
the  lower  at  the  call  of  conscience,  when  he  must 
deny  himself  in  order  that  larger  interests  than  any 
personal  ones  may  be  served.  The  most  powerful 
force  in  developing  individual  character  comes  from 
serving  an  ideal  outside  of  self,  not  from  seeking  a 
harmonious  growth  of  virtues  and  graces. 

This  criticism  applies  to  both  of  the  ideals  we  have 
been  considering,  but  more  especially  to  the  one  which 
claims  to  be  the  distinctively  religious  one.  A  man 
cannot  be  said  to  be  holy,  though  he  has  kept  himself 
unspotted  from  evil,  if  with  it  all  he  lives  a  hard 


336  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

and  loveless  life,  and  if  he  has  passed  by  the  world's 
work  and  duties  and  interests;  for  holiness  is  not  a 
negative  state,  but  means  attainment,  character,  in- 
creasing likeness  to  God  whose  nature  is  Love.  The 
Christian  salvation  is  social  as  well  as  individual:  it 
could  not  really  be  the  one  without  the  other  also. 
Our  Lord's  purpose  was  to  found  a  kingdom  of  souls 
working  out  to  social  ends,  a  kingdom  of  men  and 
women  living  in  loving  relation  to  each  other  through 
their  loving  relation  to  God.  The  Christian  faith  in 
God  carries  with  it  as  an  inevitable  consequence  the 
service  of  man.  The  training  of  the  twelve,  to  which 
Jesus  gave  most  of  His  public  ministry,  was  not  an 
end  in  itself,  but  a  means  to  a  greater  end.  The 
Kingdom  of  Heaven  was  like  leaven  put  into  meal  till 
the  whole  should  be  leavened.  Pure  religion  and  un- 
defiled  is  designed,  not  only  to  preserve  good  men 
from  contamination,  but  also  to  save  the  world. 

When  the  ideal  of  religion  does  not  include  the 
active  practical  life,  it  means  an  immense  loss  to  the 
world,  as  has  often  been  proved  in  the  history  of  the 
Church.  The  number  of  hermits  and  coenobites  of 
Egypt  in  the  fourth  century  seems  incredible.  They 
covered  the  desert  in  thousands,  mostly  living  in 
monasteries,  though  many  of  them  as  solitaries.  It 
was  irreparable  loss  to  the  world,  as  it  has  been  down 
the  Christian  ages  since,  of  so  many  of  the  best  citi- 
zens, men  and  women  who  were  in  earnest,  who  really 
desired  to  serve  God,  and  whose  standard  was  high 
above  that  of  the  world  they  left.  Some  of  the  wisest 
of  the  Fathers  saw  this  danger  of  loss  to  the  Church 
and  the  world,  and  strove  to  show  that  all  gifts  of 
the  Spirit  were  given  to  be  used  on  behalf  of  others. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  SOLUTION  337 

The  gathering  of  ascetics  under  monastic  orders  was 
indeed  a  piece  of  early  Church  statesmanship,  that 
they  might  be  brought  under  discipHne,  and  be  utiHsed 
for  service.  Chrysostom,  himself  a  monk,  and  who 
was  profoundly  impressed  by  the  ascetic  ideal,  con- 
demned those  who  lived  in  solitude  without  a  sense 
of  responsibility  for  others,  condemned  Christians 
who  take  possession  of  the  mountains  instead  of  taking 
possession  of  human  life.  "How  shall  we  conquer 
the  enemy,"  he  asks,  "  when  some  have  no  care  for 
virtue,  and  those  who  are  interested  for  it,  retreat  to 
a  distance  from  the  order  of  battle  ?  "  ^  The  withdrawal 
of  sincere  Christian  life  from  actual  contact  with  the 
world  is  an  irreparable  loss  to  the  world.  When  the 
finest  spirits  live  only  for  their  own  improvement, 
whether  that  be  of  mental  or  of  spiritual  powers,  in- 
stead of  employing  their  gifts  for  the  common  good, 
the  result  cannot  but  be  fatal  to  everybody. 

The  recognition  of  this  by  the  leaders  of  the  Church 
made  them  encourage  monasticism  as  the  Christian 
ideal  rather  than  any  form  of  hermit  life.  The  thought 
of  service  was  never  quite  lost  sight  of,  though  it  was 
often  in  danger  of  sinking  to  a  very  secondary  posi- 
tion. When  Gregory  of  Nazianzen  and  Basil  were 
young  men  studying  at  Athens,  they  decided  to  aban- 
don the  great  worldly  prospects  which  lay  before  them, 
and  yet  they  felt  the  extreme  form  of  withdrawal  to  be 
only  a  disguised  sort  of  selfishness,  and  so  they  chose 
the  compromise  which  included  the  opportunity  of 
service.  Gregory  speaks  of  two  ascetic  disciplines, 
that  of  the  solitary  or  hermit,  and  that  of  the  secular, 
the  first  thinking  only  of  some  personal  good,  the  other 

*  6th  Homily  on  ist  Ep.  to  Cor, 


338  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

the  larger  good  of  others.  The  monastic  Hfe  to  some 
extent  combined  both,  offered  seclusion  and  retirement, 
and  yet  did  not  exclude  the  sweet  ministry  of  love 
which  is  so  essentially  Christian. 

I  saw  when  men  lived  in  the  fretful  world, 

They  vantaged  other  men,  but  risked  the  while 

The  calmness  and  the  pureness  of  their  hearts. 

They  who  retired  held  an  uprighter  port, 

And  raised  their  eyes  with  quiet  strength  towards  heaven. 

Yet  served  self  only,  unfraternally. 

And  so,  'twixt  these  and  those,  I  struck  my  path, 

To  meditate  with  the  free  solitary. 

Yet  to  live  secular,  and  serve  mankind.^ 

This  purpose  of  service  was  in  the  minds  of  many 
who  chose  this  life,  withdrawing  from  the  engross- 
ments of  the  world,  in  order  to  be  of  greater  service  to 
the  world. 

Even  though  we  may  condemn  the  particular  his- 
toric form  it  took  in  the  monastic  system,  yet  we  must 
remember  that  the  same  two  notes  found  in  Gregory's 
decision  must  be  combined  for  the  highest  kind  of 
social  service.  The  qualifications  for  the  best  use- 
fulness are  detachment  and  sympathy,  an  aloofness 
of  spirit,  if  not  of  life,  along  with  sensitiveness  to  the 
needs  and  sorrows  and  sins  of  men.  It  is  only  the 
man,  whose  own  personality  has  been  enriched,  who 
has  any  real  contribution  to  make  to  the  wealth  of  the 
world.  Capacity  for  service  ultimately  depends  on  the 
fruitfulness  of  the  self.  This  is  the  distinct  place  for 
all  kinds  of  culture,  not  as  an  end  in  itself,  but  as 
means  to  the  wider  end  of  service.  Social  betterment 
in  any  true  sense,  as  more  than  the  mere  rearrange- 

*  Newmap,  Historical  Sketches,  vol.  ii.  p.  57. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  SOLUTION    /  .  339 

ment  of  external  conditions,  can  only  come  from  m- 
dividual  character  and  intellect.  The  production  of 
that  is  a  primary  duty,  even  for  the  sake  of  others. 
A  man's  contribution  to  society  will  mean  all  the  riches 
and  resources  of  his  nature,  his  heritage  of  race,  and 
personal  capacity,  and  education.  Social  good  will  be 
advanced,  not  by  impoverishing  the  self,  but  by  letting 
it  grow  to  its  full  stature,  by  doing  the  work  best 
fitted  for  the  special  talents,  and  by  giving  them  the 
highest  education  possible.  Everything,  of  course, 
will  depend  on  the  aim  and  spirit  of  the  culture.  There 
are  dangers,  some  of  which  we  have  seen  in  discussing 
the  Defects  of  the  Esthetic  Ideal,^  but  these  dangers 
must  be  faced,  and  they  can  safely  be  faced  with  tliis 
religious  thought  of  the  consecration  of  gifts;  for 
the  religious  ideal  of  service  will  save  a  richly  endowed 
personality  from  his  besetting  temptation  of  the  selfish 
use  of  his  powers.  The  artistic  temptation,  to  look 
upon  life  as  aflFording  material  for  art,  will  be  dispelled 
by  the  larger  and  deeper  thought  of  serving  men, 
rather  than  of  using  them  even  in  that  refined  sense. 

The  same  is  true  of  the  spiritual  detachment,  which 
the  ascetic  ideal  embodied  so  fully.  All  the  outlets  of 
human  activity  are  meant  to  be  laid  hold  of  by  Chris- 
tian men,  and  made  sacred  by  sanctified  use.  No  seem- 
ing victory  over  indwelling  sin  can  make  up  for  the 
terrible  waste  of  power  for  good,  which  might  make 
the  desert  of  life  blossom  like  the  rose;  and  any  such 
victory,  unrelated  to  the  actual  conditions  of  life,  is 
more  apparent  than  real.  True  self-control  is  to  be 
got  in  the  midst  of  the  struggle :  it  is  not  mutilation  of 
natural  desires,  but  the  subordination  of  each  desire  to 

^Ante,  chap.  iii. 


340  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

the  good  of  the  whole  man,  and  ultimately  also  to 
man  as  a  social  unit.  It  is  the  task  of  life  to  acquire 
the  wisdom  which  can  do  this  well,  which  can  live 
in  the  world,  doing  the  duty  of  the  world,  accepting 
all  the  responsibilities  and  temptations  of  the  situation, 
and  yet  untainted  by  the  evil  of  the  world.  The  King- 
dom of  God  is  the  great  Christian  end.  Service  is  the 
Master's  last  word  for  the  instruction  of  His  disciples. 
They  are  to  go  unto  all  the  world ;  and  the  command 
is  not  only  extensive  in  its  sweep  but  also  intensive 
in  its  working.  The  sphere  of  the  Christian  activity  i . 
the  whole  range  of  human  life,  bringing  love  to  the 
world's  woes,  and  love  also  to  the  world's  work.  A 
loveless  saint  thus  becomes  a  contradiction  in  terms. 

We  have  here  another  illustration  of  the  way  ex- 
tremes meet ;  for  we  find  both  of  the  ideals  leading  men 
to  shut  themselves  off  from  the  sordidness  of  the 
world  in  some  form  of  isolation,  the  one  for  the  de- 
velopment of  mental  gifts,  the  other  for  spiritual  con- 
templation, both  neglecting  the  practical  call  to  con- 
secrate all  gifts  to  service.  Complete  self-culture  and 
complete  holiness  are  alike  impossible  without  rocial 
service;  for  the  atrophy  of  the  highest  parts  of  our 
nature  results  from  any  selfish  plan  of  life.  Any 
scheme  of  self-culture,  or  any  scheme  of  self-denial, 
is  no  true  end  for  man,  and  are  at  best  means  cowards 
a  higher  end.  Self-denial  can  often  be  justified  as 
being  for  the  sake  of  a  higher  self -culture,  and  can 
always  be  justified  when  inspired  by  love.  In  the 
ultimate  issue  self-culture  also  can  only  be  so  justified. 
Culture  is  but  the  polishing  and  sharpening  of  an  in- 
strument to  make  it  serve  for  the  best  work.  Exten- 
sion of  knowledge,  refinement  of  feeling,  education  of 


THE  CHRISTIAN  SOLUTION         341 

taste,  and  all  the  noble  results  of  culture,  may  minister 
to  a  subtle  selfishness,  but  they  may  legitimately  be 
sought  that  we  may  be  qualified  for  the  better  service 
of  life.  Certainly  culture,  which  would  be  Christian, 
must  come  under  that  law,  which  is  the  law  of  the 
Christian  life.  Love  and  holiness  are  the  two  strands, 
and  without  love  holiness  cannot  be,  since  love  is  the 
fulfilling  of  the  law.  The  Christian  heart  must  serve, 
must  bend  to  duty  and  all  gentle  ministry.  There  may 
be  an  aloofness  of  soul,  the  unspotted  mind,  the  ex- 
alted life,  combined  with  humble  service  of  men — 
nay,  there  must  be  both  of  these  elements,  found  in 
such  perfect  harmony  in  our  Lord  Himself.  Words- 
worth, in  his  great  sonnet  on  Milton,  expressed  this 
combination  of  a  noble  life — 

Thy  soul  was  like  a  star,  and  dwelt  apart: 

Thou  hadst  a  voice  whose  sound  was  like  the  sea: 

Pure  as  the  naked  heavens,  majestic,  free, 

So  didst  thou  travel  on  life's  common  way, 

In  cheerful  godliness;    and  yet  thy  heart 

The  lowliest  duties  on  herself  did  lay. 

How  true  it  is,  that  love  must  test  all  life,  is  seen 
even  in  the  narrower  sphere  of  the  subject-matter  of 
art  itself,  and  the  spirit  in  which  it  must  be  produced. 
Great  art  is  not  done  for  beauty's  sake  alone,  but 
for  the  sake  of  humanity.  It  is  not  art  for  art's  sake, 
as  is  the  common  cant  of  some  art  circles,  not  even  art 
for  truth's  sake,  as  Browning  amended  the  phrase, 
but  art  for  love's  sake.  If  the  artist  forgets  to  think 
of  how  it  affects  human  life,  if  he  withdraws  himself 
in  spirit  from  the  vulgar  throng,  if  he  loves  beauty 
for  itself,  if  he  puts  away  from  him  the  opportunity 


342  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

of  serving  mankind,  if  he  has  no  desire  to  give 
strength  or  consolation  or  dignity  to  life,  he  ends  in 
losing  beauty  itself;  for  beauty  cannot  survive  when 
love  is  dead.  Thus  we  see  tliat  the  empire  over  men 
in  art  is  given  to  the  man  who  knows  love,  and  in- 
terprets it,  and  illustrates  it.  It  is  an  unfathomable 
subject,  one  that  cannot  be  exhausted.  It  may  be  the 
common  love  of  a  mother  to  her  helpless  child,  which  is 
all  that  many  Madonnas  ever  suggest,  and  yet  which 
makes  them  great  art  still.  The  empire  over  men  in 
life  also  is  given  to  those  who  know  love,  who  move 
us  by  their  cenderness,  and  sympathy,  and  gracious 
ministry.  When  art  loses  its  touch  with  life,  no  mere 
technical  excellence,  no  mere  skill  with  colours  or 
with  words,  will  save  it  from  emptiness  and  failure; 
and  when  religion  loses  its  touch  with  the  needs  and 
duties  of  Hfe,  no  interior  lights,  and  sweet  consola- 
tions, and  ecstatic  visions,  will  save  it  from 
degradation. 

Culture  for  its  own  sake,  and  sacrifice  for  its  own 
sake,  are  neither  a  sufficient  end,  but  they  each  find 
scope,  ai)d  are  made  reasonable,  by  the  great  Christian 
thought  of  service,  which  reconciles  so  many  difficul- 
ties which  meet  us  in  this  whole  region.  With  such  a 
dominating  motive  as  service  there  will  be  room  for 
all  types  of  personality,  and  for  all  individual  capaci- 
ties however  divergent.  We  will  see  the  need  for  self- 
restraint,  discipline,  and  the  sterner  qualities,  supposed 
to  be  associated  only  with  Puritanism;  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  if  we  recognise  that  the  end  of  all  our 
training  of  our  powers  is  for  service,  we  will  not  limit 
the  thought  of  service,  as  narrow  Puritanism  so  often 
did.    We  will  know  that  it  takes  all  sorts  of  men  to 


THE  CHRISTIAN  SOLUTION         343 

make  a  world;  and  if  they  be  true  men  serving  the 
commonweal  according  to  capacity,  it  does  not  matter 
much  where  and  how  they  serve,  or  in  what  depart- 
ment of  work.  There  are  many  and  various  kinds  of 
service;  and  their  rank  is  settled,  not  according  to 
the  type  of  work,  but  according  to  the  spirit  in  which 
it  is  done.  This  principle  of  service  does  not  mean 
that  all  must  become  professional  or  amateur  philan- 
thropists, but  it  does  mean  some  form  of  consecration 
of  g^fts.  The  artist  and  poet  serve  by  creating  their 
works  of  beauty  or  of  inspiring  song,  and  to  ask  them 
to  leave  the  sphere  for  which  they  are  specially  en- 
dowed, in  order  to  work  in  a  city  slum,  would  be  folly. 
The  world  can  much  easier  do  without  some  of  the 
practical  energy,  which  indeed  it  never  lacks,  than  it 
can  do  without  the  vision  of  the  prophet,  and  the 
imagination  of  the  poet,  and  the  beautiful  creation  of 
the  artist — all  the  intellectual  and  spiritual  thought 
with  which  thinkers  and  seers  feed  the  true  life  of 
their  fellows.  Much  of  the  best  labour,  wrought  out 
of  the  brain  and  heart  of  a  man,  has  no  direct  reference 
to  the  welfare  of  men,  but  we  cannot  measure  its  in- 
direct value  in  kindling  thought,  and  deepening  feel- 
ing, and  awakening  aspiration.  It  is  not  dull  uniform- 
ity in  what  is  called  charitable  work  that  is  needed, 
but  spiritual  consecration  that  will  make  all  work 
sacred  because  inspired  with  a  noble  motive. 

The  primal  duties  and  gentle  charities  that  bless 
men  will  not  be  omitted,  for  such  a  conception  of  serv- 
ice will  give  the  tender  touch  upon  all  life,  the  loving 
pity  of  men.  The  true  moral  of  the  brevity  of  time 
is  not  the  one  Pater  draws  of  gathering  all  we  are 
into  one  desperate  effort  to  see  and  touch  by  the  stir- 


344  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

ring  of  the  senses,  to  experience  a  thrill  from  strange 
dyes  or  strange  colours  or  curious  odours.  Because 
life  is  short,  the  highest  course  open  to  the  children 
of  men  is  not  to  grasp  at  any  exquisite  passion,  nor 
even  to  seek  some  personal  gain  of  culture — there  is  a 
better  part  mentioned  by  Amiel,  whose  mind  had  an 
even  finer  culture  than  Pater's :  "  Life  is  short,  and  we 
have  never  too  much  time  for  gladdening  the  hearts 
of  those  who  are  travelling  the  dark  journey  with  us." 
It  is  at  least  a  nobler  view,  and  will  save  life  from 
ever  sinking  to  the  depths  into  which  the  other  some- 
times plunges  it. 

Difficulties  there  will  always  be  in  reconciling  in 
detail  the  duty  of  culture  with  the  equally  imperative 
duty  of  self-restraint.  It  is  not  possible  to  extricate 
matters  in  our  complicated  life,  and  draw  a  hard  and 
fast  line.  It  is  difficult  to  say  how  far  a  man,  who 
wants  to  keep  his  garment  unspotted,  should  go  in 
the  matter  of  intercourse  with  the  great  mass  of  things 
which  seem  to  lie  on  the  border-line.  So  much  in  the 
world  is  in  itself  morally  neutral,  and  can  become  good 
or  evil  according  to  the  way  it  is  treated.  When  the 
choice  is  between  what  is  evil  though  alluring,  and 
what  is  good  though  difficult,  it  is  easy  to  know  at  least 
how  the  decision  should  go;  but  all  the  practical  diffi- 
culties are  not  so  easily  disposed  of.  When  the  choice 
lies  between  the  two  courses  which  are  both  good,  such 
as  when  duty  to  self  seems  to  conflict  with  duty  to 
others,  the  problem  is  harder.  For  example,  a  man 
may  see  a  chance  of  doing  the  kind  of  work  he  likes 
best,  if  he  will  only  cut  himself  off  from  certain  irk- 


THE  CHRISTIAN  SOLUTION         345 

some  domestic  obligations.  Is  he  to  choose  that  which 
will  give  himself  greatest  pain  without  considering 
what  will  bring  the  greatest  amount  of  good?  Or 
is  he  to  say,  according  to  the  common  philosophy  of 
culture,  that  the  theory  which  requires  of  him  the 
sacrifice  of  the  larger  experience  into  which  he  might 
enter  has  no  real  claim  on  him? 

It  is  not  possible  in  a  general  statement  to  give  a 
solution  for  all  cases,  apart  from  the  particular  cir- 
cumstances of  each  special  problem;  but  in  concrete 
cases  the  ordinary  conscience  of  man  finds  little  diffi- 
culty in  pronouncing  judgment.  It  would  condemn 
Goethe  for  his  treatment  of  the  different  women  with 
whom  he  successively  fell  in  love,  but  for  none  of 
whom  he  would  take  any  risk  of  reducing  his  oppor- 
tunities for  calm  self-development.  It  would  condemn 
Romney  for  his  conduct  to  his  wife.^  He  came  to 
London,  leaving  behind  at  Kendal  his  wife  and  two 
children,  one  son,  and  a  baby  daughter  who  died, 
meaning  to  send  for  them  when  he  had  secured  a  posi- 
tion. Fame  and  fortune  came  to  him,  and  he  gave 
himself  with  intense  devotion  to  his  art,  and  became 
the  most  fashionable  portrait-painter  of  his  day.  For 
thirty-five  years  he  lived  in  London,  but  never  sent 
for  his  wife.  He  had  been  told  that  marriage  spoilt 
an  artist,  and  there  would  also  be  in  his  mind  the 
shame  of  presenting  his  country  wife  to  Lady  Hamil- 
ton whom  he  painted  so  often,  and  other  grand  people. 
In  his  old  age,  when  helpless  and  desolate,  he  returned 
to  her,  and  she  forgave  him,  and  nursed  him  till  he 
died.     There  is  a  standard  of  judgment,  with  which 

*  Vide  Tennyson's  Romney's  Remorse, 


346  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

the  heart  of  man  agrees,  which  will  confirm  Edward 
Fitz-Gerald's  verdict,  that  this  quiet  act  of  hers  is 
worth  all  the  pictures  Romney  ever  painted.^ 

Every  serious  man  must  decide  for  himself  in  all 
the  doubtful  cases  which  emerge  in  life  when  culture 
and  restraint  seem  to  conflict.  No  one  can  take  from 
another  the  responsibility  of  settling  the  numerous 
problems,  for  instance,  about  amusements,  about  com- 
pliance with  custom,  about  certain  forms  of  art  and 
literature.  It  is  a  safe  general  principle  which  dele- 
gates decision  to  an  enlightened  conscience :  "  Happy 
is  he  that  condemneth  not  himself  in  the  things  which 
he  alloweth."  This  too  must  be  added,  that  for  true 
judgments,  as  for  useful  influence,  we  need  not  so 
much  a  scrupulous  as  a  tender  conscience,  that  thinks, 
neither  of  selfish  satisfaction,  nor  of  frigid  rectitude 
of  conduct  and  satisfied  inward  approval,  but  chiefly 
of  loving  service.  We  must  not  l^t  ourselves  be  de- 
ceived by  specious  questions  of  casuistry,  which  only 
obscure  the  issues. 

The  love  of  God  in  Christ  unifies  life  for  us,  and 
shows  us  the  way  out  of  difficulties  as  they  arise,  if 
we  are  loyal  to  conscience.  As  love  increases  and 
faith  deepens,  a  man  comes  to  see  God  everywhere, 
in  the  world  which  is  made  beautiful  and  sacred  by 
His  presence,  in  all  human  love  which  is  a  reflection 
of  the  divine.  Perfect  moral  health  is  a  state  in  which 
self-consciousness  is  forgotten,  and  a  man  desires 
simply  to  do  God's  will.  When  a  heart  is  motived 
by  the  love  of  God,  and  a  life  is  inspired  by  the 
consciousness   of   God's    presence,   the  necessary   re- 

^  Fitz-Geraldi*6  Letters,  p.  102,  and  vide  James  Smetham's 
Letters,  p.  loi. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  SOLUTION  347 

straint  becomes  easy.  The  surrender  of  self  to  the 
will  of  God  makes  all  necessary  self-denial  not  worthy 
to  be  mentioned.  In  the  interests  of  this  great  self- 
surrender  some  may  need  to  practise  a  self-sacrifice 
that  will  look  like  the  mutilation  of  life,  but  that  is  only 
appearance.  The  obligation  will  always  rest  on  a 
Christian  to  give  up  all  that  is  contrary  to  the  mind 
of  Christ,  but  when  the  heart  is  filled  with  love  of 
good  it  finds  no  pleasure  in  evil.  It  does  not  mean  any 
narrow  deprivation  of  anything  truly  human ;  for  the 
Christian  life  is  inclusive,  subduing  all  spheres  that 
belong  to  man. 

The  Christian  religion  is  the  progressive  grasp  of 
the  whole  contents  of  human  life,  taking  possession 
of  every  department  of  thought  and  activity,  con- 
quering and  assimilating  all  forms  of  human  develop- 
ment. Historically,  it  took  the  philosophy  of  Greece, 
and  absorbed  it,  and  gave  it  a  new  lease  of  power 
because  it  put  it  on  a  permanent  basis.  It  took  the 
imperialism  of  Rome,  and  directed  it  into  a  new 
sphere,  when  Roman  power  was  crumbling  away.  It 
took  the  humanism  of  the  Renaissance,  and  gave  art  a 
new  birth.  It  took  the  political  and  intellectual  free- 
dom of  the  Reformation,  and  made  them  religious.  It 
is  taking  the  science,  and  politics,  and  social  move- 
ments of  to-day,  and  will  direct  them  to  large  and  noble 
ends.  It  solved  the  problems  of  the  old  world,  and 
will  solve  our  problems,  because  nothing  human  is 
alien  to  it.  It  is  a  principle  of  life,  and  has  its  undying 
power  in  the  present  realisation  of  God  in  the  world. 
Its  task  is  to  make  the  secular  life  of  man  sacred,  and 
to  transform  the  natural  into  the  spiritual.  It  gives 
added  worth  to  all  human  things,  asserting  that  there 


348  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

is  nothing  common  or  unclean  in  the  life  of  man  that . 
cannot  be  adorned  with  a  new  splendour.  This  is 
why  the  ascetic  conception  of  life  is  radically  false. 
Allowing  for  a  useful  side  in  occasional  protest,  the 
normal  Christian  life  is  not  that  of  the  anchorite  in 
the  desert,  or  the  devotee  in  his  cell.  The  normal  life 
is  that  of  citizens  of  a  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  working 
out  to  positive  results.  The  religious  spirit  must  ex- 
press itself  in  the  actual  world,  in  creating  institutions 
which  shall  make  for  righteousness.  Its  ideal  is  that 
the  so-called  secular  pursuits  should  be  done  in  a  re- 
ligious spirit. 

For  a  full  character  and  a  perfectly  rounded  life 
there  are  needed  both  of  the  elements  in  the  two  rival 
methods  we  have  been  considering.  The  stem  temper, 
which  takes  self-discipline  as  a  serious  task  of  life,  may 
blossom  into  beauty,  with  an  eye  for  all  that  is  fair, 
and  true,  and  good.  The  ideal  of  manhood  includes 
both,  as  Wordsworth  portrays  the  perfected  result  of 
Duty- 
Flowers  laugh  before  thee  in  their  beds, 
And  fragrance  in  thy  footing  treads. 

e  think  of  the  harmonious  life  of  Christ,  the  com- 
plete balance  and  poise  of  His  character,  the  unrivalled 
combination  of  qualities,  wisdom  and  simplicity, 
strength  and  tenderness,  the  perfect  adjustment  of  life 
to  the  divine  will,  the  simple  assurance  of  God,  the 
wonderful  symmetry  of  life,  genial  and  winsome  in 
spite  of  sorrow,  with  instinctive  joy  in  all  true  love- 
liness, taking  delight  in  the  birds,  and  the  flowers,  and 
little  children,  though  the  shadow  of  the  cross  lay 
athwart  His  path.  There  have  in  their  measure  been 
many  followers  of  His,  who  have  found  in  Him  the 
secret  of  possessing  their  souls  without  cutting  them- 


^iw^ 


THE  CHRISTIAN  SOLUTION  349 

selves  off  from  anything  that  is  pure  and  good,  com- 
bining a  certain  spiritual  aloofness  with  many-sided 
touch  of  the  whole  round  of  common  life.  In  Christ 
there  is  room  for  the  fullest  self-expression — nay,  for 
the  first  time  He  makes  that  completely  possible,  be- 
cause He  saves  it  from  corrupt  forms  which  would 
bring  decay  and  death.  Secure  at  the  heart,  held  by 
love  to  Him  at  the  centre,  the  life  can  swing  round  a 
wide  radius.  He  subdues  us  to  Himself  the  Highest, 
and  sets  us  to  the  task  of  total  perfection  for  self  and 
for  the  whole  world.  There  never  was  such  a  scheme 
of  culture  set  before  men  as  that  to  which  He  pointed : 
"  Be  ye  therefore  perfect,  even  as  your  Father  in 
heaven  is  perfect."  ^  He  preserves  the  Hellenic  spirit 
from  degradation  and  from  selfishness,  by  bringing  to 
it  faith  in  God  as  a  motive,  and  service  of  man  as  a 
task.  He  saves  the  Hebraic  spirit  from  formalism, 
and  the  futile  following  after  an  external  law  of  right- 
eousness which  ever  misses  the  mark,  by  giving  the  law 
a  new  spirit,  the  spirit  of  faith,  and  love,  and  perfect 
freedom.  Through  Him  the  Gentiles,  who  followed  not 
after  righteousness,  have  attained  to  it.  In  Him  alone 
could  Israel,  which  did  follow  after  the  law  of  right- 
eousness, find  that  for  which  she  sought — the  way  to 
the  Father.  In  Him,  too,  all  our  particular  difficulties 
in  the  region  we  have  been  discussing,  which  is  that  of 
the  whole  relation  of  the  Christian  to  the  world,  will  be 
practically  solved,  if  we  can  say  with  St.  Paul,  even  in 
echo :  "  1  live,  and  yet  not  I,  but  Christ  liveth  in  me ; 
and  the  life  which  I  now  live  in  the  flesh  I  live  by  the 
faith  of  the  Son  of  God,  who  loved  me,  and  gave  Him- 
self for  me."  ^ 

It  is  religion  man  needs,  not  culture  in  itself.     So 

»Matt.  V.  48.  'Gal.  ii.  20. 


350  CULTURE  AND  RESTRAINT 

the  birthplace  of  modem  civilisation  is  not  Athens, 
but  Calvary.  The  *'  pale  Galilean "  has  conquered 
against  all  the  full-bl(X)ded  gospels  of  the  natural 
joy  of  life,  but  conquered  in  the  grandest  way  of  con- 
quest, not  by  the  extermination  of  the  opponent,  but 
by  changing  the  enemy  into  a  friend.  When  the  sons 
of  Greece  are  not  against  but  for  the  sons  of  Zion; 
when  all  ideals  of  culture  find  their  inspiration  and 
nourishment  in  the  divine  ideals  of  Jesus,  and  take 
their  place  in  the  great  loving  world-purpose  of  the 
world's  Saviour ;  when  thought,  and  art  and  literature, 
and  knowledge,  and  life  are  brought  into  subjection 
to  the  obedience  of  Christ,  that  is  the  true  victory. 

Thou  hast  conquered,  O  Galilean! 


^^W^Qy 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 

Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


19  Oct*C4HK 

^^«*t^n  . 

*    «^--!P« 

-       6Mar'65U 

1      REC'D  LD 

1  FEB  2 1  "65  -4  PM 

1    APR3  4lW-'^-^i 

^ 

m    rfro.  era,  T!-i?2'j  iT 

LD  2IA-40m-ll,'63 
(E16028l0)476B 


UiUTetsity  of  California 

General  Library 

Berkeley 


/%^^\ 


.^^'^^     ^% 


